The Dark of the Night
by CastlesInTheAir
Summary: This is just my take on the little bit missing in between Abby's kidnapping and when we next saw her... The darkness of night conceals and causes many things.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's inane babble:** I believe I'm not the only one who felt there were a few things missing between the episodes "Skin" and "Only Connect". I was disappointed there was no reactions to Abby's being abby-napped (as opposed to being kidnapped), so as a result of my disappointment I wrote this.  
Hey, it ain't Shakespeare, but it's here. Forgive me if it's awful, enjoy it if you will, hate it if you must, review it if you please.

I would be very much obliged. :)

**Author's Disclaimer:** I disclaim all… I do not own anything to do with ER. For one thing, I'm Aussie, and for another thing I am writing purely out of interest. Please, forgive me for both.  
Actually, no, don't forgive me for being Aussie. I'm quite alright with that.

But please forgive me if I screw up any medical terminology. Because I am most definitely not a Doctor. And that is a good thing.

**The Dark of the Night**

Abby shivered in the cold Chicago air. It swept down into the ambulance bay, reaching right through her bloodstained scrubs, chilling and invasive – but she probably wouldn't have noticed were it snowing, or were there a hurricane tearing down the street. It would have taken a lot to move her at that moment.  
She stood silently, watching the black SUV drive into the night, not daring to move or even breathe, for fear that they'd turn around and come back… come back and take her, take her out and finish the job.  
But they didn't.  
She couldn't see them any longer. It was over, as fast as it had begun. All over… there was nothing but the darkness of the street ahead, and the eerie lights of an ambulance, flashing red and blue as it sat motionless in the bay.

Had they seen any of it? Probably not. No one had.  
She could just turn right around and go home, and maybe no one would ever know.

No one but her.

The tears seemed to keep on coming, but she didn't reach a hand to wipe them away. She left her arms, shivering, by her side, not even bothering to shield herself from the cold. Her breath crystallised as it left her mouth. She could practically see it in the air.

They'd just left her and gone. Just like that… just what she'd wanted. She'd been so sure they would have… no, she couldn't even begin to think of it.

Wordlessly, Abby Lockhart turned around, and started walking. Part of her _did_ know exactly where she should go… she should go back to the ER. She should go back, and first things first let Susan know where she was. Susan, who was her boss, who would be wondering why she'd left mid shift. She should stop the rest of them from wondering… if they were wondering at all. It was a guilty thought, but Abby thought it anyway.

She knew where she should go, but _knowing_ something was different from doing it. Besides, how could she go back? What did you normally do after something like this? Where were you supposed to go? What were you supposed to say? Absently, she remembered that she'd walked out in a huff, but it didn't seem to matter so much, anymore. Not compared to the fact that she was breathing… she was… alive. She, who saw death and pain everyday, was very much alive. She could have been… no. She wasn't.

Abby started in the direction of the large double doors. Towards the light.

It was cold… she noticed now, as she kept on walking, and kept on shivering. She started into a jog, faster… getting wherever she was headed in a hurry. She had to stop this thinking right away… it was dangerous. Had to stop it, had to _do_ something. That was what she always did, right? Go to work, _do_ something, anything to keep her mind off her troubles. Working was fine. It was easy to forget your life when you were working. Easy to forget that person you had been before you walked through those swinging doors, and so easy to forget while you were helping others how much you needed to help yourself.

It never lasted, though. The second you walked back into the air, you walked back into yourself… and you remembered. In the stillness of life outside the bustling hospital, you remembered. You remembered why you wanted to forget.

Perhaps she could leave it behind. If she could only leave it behind, if she could just try hard enough get away from it… maybe, just maybe, she'd forget. Maybe that part of her would stay right there, at the entrance to the bay. Maybe if she didn't stand on that corner ever again, she'd never remember. Maybe she'd go to bed, and wake up the same person she'd been that morning, go to work the next day, live life like she had before. Before? Maybe it would go away and just leave her alone… leave her for good. She'd barge through those swinging doors and be busy, once again.  
Abby sniffled and wiped away the tears with the corner of her sleeve.

It didn't seem to be working… it was following her. She hugged her arms around her as she ran. If not to protect herself from the cold she now forget, then to try and protect herself from the memories. But not just the memories, which were all real enough… the feelings. The feelings were too real. She could still feel it, all of it, in so much detail, too much detail. Unable to escape, driving into the woods, their cold, dark eyes, the gun… oh god, the gun.

She stopped in her tracks, doubling over in the shadows of the ambulance bay. She was going to be sick.

Abby dropped to her knees, and heaved the contents of her stomach into a battered, steel garbage can. She couldn't remember when she'd last felt so terrible. She didn't get sick. Hadn't even had the flu in ages… barely even caught a cold. Something about being a doctor made her not want to be sick, ever. Well, those flu shots probably had a lot to do with it, too.

Could you get a shot for this type of sickness?

The sound of ambulance sirens squealed behind her, and rose into the night. They echoed between the cold brick walls, throbbing and pounding in her ears as she rested a shaky palm on her forehead. It was hot, but couldn't possibly have been – she felt so cold. With her free hand she tucked stray strands of hair behind her ears, and breathed deeply. The air inside her lungs felt cold, too, and the incessant tears kept on sliding down her face. Gingerly, she stood up and wiped her mouth.

Some part of her mind, the logical, rational Abby, wondered if throwing up had anything to do with post traumatic stress. Or that feeling in the pit of her stomach. That feeling that didn't want to go away. Logical Abby told her, like any good Doctor, to go inside the hospital. Go inside and sit down, grab something warm to drink, get settled and be checked over, be fixed up, be helped… logical Abby reminded her of every textbook she'd ever read and every note she'd ever made during med school. Various strands of medical terminology and procedures bubbled through her consciousness, haunting her, like a terrible instinct.  
But the other part of her mind, the emotional, very human Abby, was telling her to get away. The part of her she tried to suppress when things got bad… the part of her she left behind when she was immersed in pure work, it wanted to take over. It wanted to get rid of logical Abby, and wanted to trash every textbook in creation. It wanted to make her go home, curl up in a ball, and forget everything she had heard and seen.  
It must have been that feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she was boiling over… she clutched her stomach with one hand and leaned the other to steady herself against the cool bricks. How did you stop this sort of thing? She wondered feebly…

"Abby?"

Abby snapped out of her wonderings and jerked her head towards the sound of her name. 

"Abby, Is that you?"

Susan Lewis stood at the open doorway to the ER. The brightness from the hospital lights shone behind her, framing her in a somewhat ethereal light, showing the stark whiteness of her lab coat beneath a thick overcoat, the warm coffee in her hand, and the complete and utter shock on her face.  
Abby inhaled deeply, trying to stop the shaking in her shoulders… but it didn't work. Even her breath was shaky. Was it possible to feel so cold inside and out, when the pit of her stomach was boiling over?

"My God, Abby, what happened? You look like… Where were you? I thought…"

"I just… I'm sorry, Susan, I-" Abby croaked as she stepped forward into the light, feeling oddly exposed. And her voice sounded strange in the night air… it sounded too stark, too loud and unfamiliar. It didn't sound like her own.

Susan's eyes widened, as the light from the ER flashed on Abby's wet cheeks, and illuminated the dark stains on her scrubs.

"Stop it, Abby," she breathed as she set down her steaming coffee right she was standing and walked towards her. "You look like you're frozen… don't worry about anything, just tell me what happened, ok?"

Susan stood in the half-light, the concerned yet collected side of her nature taking over. Without another thought, she shrugged off her warm overcoat and draped it across Abby's shoulders. Abby looked rather small and forlorn inside Susan's thick coat, but she didn't reject the extra warmth. She didn't look up at Susan, however.

"Abby, look at me."

Abby didn't comply. She folded her arms tightly and looked away. Those tears were still coming… and irrational Abby was telling her to run away, telling her to get out before it hurt any more… telling her to laugh everything off, to go home and to forget. To come to work the next day, like nothing had happened. Just like she always did. Telling her only to survive… wasn't that enough?

Rational Abby tried to tell her to stay. Tried to tell her it would be a good thing… that she should look up, that she should go ahead, open up and tell Susan all…

"Abby," Susan said firmly but gently, "Look at me."

Rational or irrational, there was nothing she could do to refuse. Abby had to look up.

"Now," said Susan, laying her hands on Abby's quivering shoulders, "Tell me what happened."

Abby sniffled.

"What happened?" she mumbled with a cynical smile, looking away into the darkness as if it held the answer. It didn't. There was nothing there… nothing.

"Nothing."

"Yes it was something, Abby, now come on," Susan spoke evenly, trying to meet her eyes, "Abby, look at me. Tell me what's going on."

Abby swiped at her tears angrily. Why wouldn't they just go away? "I'm fine!" She snapped out loud, half without meaning to. Emotional Abby was welling inside her, making her shiver more than the cold. Why wouldn't she go away too? Abby lowered her head and pushed past Susan. She had to get out of here, had to go home, before things got worse…

"No, Abby, no you're not fine," Susan said defiantly, catching the escaping Abby by the arm.

"Now stop, and tell me what it is."

Abby wiped her eyes furiously with the corner of her sleeve. Damn it all, she knew it, they both did. Susan was right. Still, irrational Abby persisted.

"Susan," she began, trying desperately to remain in control. "It's nothing…"

And Abby's voice faltered, trailing off brokenly. There wasn't much use. She'd already made a mess of things. Logical Abby was leaving her… in one vain effort to hold onto her she rubbed her eyes again with a shaking hand. Susan looked sadly at her, meeting her furtive glances… and knew this wasn't the way to do things.

"Oh Abby, I'm sorry, come here…" She murmured, leaning over and mothering her friend into a hug. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I'm sorry."

Abby flinched, and stood rigidly in Susan's arms. She readied herself to run away. Emotional Abby was overpowering… she was screaming at her. '_What do you think you're doing? You don't want to be held close, least of all by a friend who doesn't understand… how can she understand? You just want to be left alone, alone! Do you hear? ALONE!'_

"It's ok." Susan said, sensing her guardedness and patting her on the shoulder, rubbing her on the back. "It's ok."

Perhaps it was the touch of a caring friend. Perhaps it was that Susan wasn't actually _trying_ to understand… or perhaps it was because they both knew she was almost at breaking point, and anything could have sent her over the edge.  
Whatever it was, it was too much. Abby gave in. She didn't have the energy left not to.

She felt her shoulders quiver, felt and heard her breath shake as she sucked in the cold night air… and didn't try to stop it. She felt the sobs course through her body, heard them out loud, and she surrendered… she just let them. She snivelled, breath coming in short, sharp gasps… she rested a weary forehead onto her boss's clean, starched white shoulder and sobbed. Only it wasn't her boss anymore, it was her friend. She sobbed like she was a little kid, not like she was the adult Abby Lockhart at war with herself. She let Susan rub her back gently, let her tell her she was going to be ok, and didn't protest. She felt herself, only somehow, it seemed so far away – being sat down onto the cold slats of a bench and held quietly. She felt it, though it didn't seem real any more. She vaguely heard someone call out… it must have been Susan, only it couldn't have been… She felt arms lift her, and carry her towards that light… she felt warm. Gradually, the tears slowed down, and she was asleep.

---

"So, what do you think it was?"

"Could have been anything. You don't… don't think she was attacked, do you?"

"Yeah, reckon it was some idiot out on the street. We should call the police, you know. Damn bums, who knows which one of us might be next? If we can't even take a break without-"

"Morris, dude… You're freakin' me out."

"Well what do _you_ think it was then, huh? Ambulance ran her down? Yeah, like they'd run a Doctor down. Even if she _was_ pissed off."

"A resident, maybe."

"What?"

"Hey, just a joke, man…"

"Ha. Ha. Real funny. You know, I have a real nice suture ready to go, blonde hair, long legs, the whole package, and I won't even give you one-"

"Guys, Doctor Lewis alert!"

"Will you people get back to your _jobs_, or do I have to increase your workload by handing out special 'bonus' charts? _Each?_"

"No, actually, we're quite busy-"

"Good. Then _get_ busy."

"Yes Doctor Lewis."

"_Interns…" _Susan rolled her eyes and sighed under her breath as she watched them scatter with a distasteful expression. Sometimes she just refused to believe she'd ever been one… that she had somehow magically graduated to the ranks of fully fledged attending without so much as going through medical school. Or perhaps Interns just annoyed her because she was now expected to manage them? Or that they just had a particularly annoying group? Either way, she didn't like them right at that exact moment. They seemed too… nosy, and insect like. Specific ones, at least. Besides, patient satisfaction scores would never go up if the patients didn't even _have _a Doctor to fill out a form on.

Quietly, she opened the door to the room they'd been gazing into. With a few deft movements she drew the blinds to stop all curious eyes, and berated herself severely for not doing so before. That was the last thing everyone needed… rumours. Especially about a staff member, not just a staff member but her friend, who deserved her own privacy. Then hurriedly, she left… but not before glancing across at a sleeping figure with concern.


	2. A Rude Awakening

**A small, note, _small_, spiel from the author: **Yes, there most definitely is more to this story. But what I can't believe… is the very kind reviews people have been good enough to give me :) I'd never expected half of the like! Thankyou, very very much… I really appreciate all the feedback.

You kindness makes me blush!

**A disclaimer, also from the author: **Again, I repeat, I disclaim all… I own nothing here bar the random patients appearing, and I have no money, so unless you wish to sell me into slavery I beg you do not sue.

**Chapter 2 – A Rude Awakening**

"_No, you don't have to do this… you don't have to do this!"_

Abby stood in the woods, shivering uncontrollably. Was it cold? It certainly felt like it should be. The darkness around her felt as though it was coldness. And there was so much darkness… yet she could see everything.

The trees were moving. She could have sworn they were closing in on her, pressing nearer. And it was so bone-chillingly cold. It must have been. Her hands were freezing.

She tried to yell, tried to call out… tried to call for help. If someone was nearby, they might just hear her. They might come and get her! The thought filled her with hope, yet desperation. She just wanted to get out, to get away, any way she could.

She just wanted to go home.

She opened her mouth, in effort to call out. If someone was standing nearby, they must hear her. It was the only way. It was her only hope.

She gathered her willpower, and screamed. Nothing came out. She tried again – still, nothing. Why couldn't she scream? What was wrong with her? She couldn't even lift an arm to signal, It was like they were shackled. Glimpsing down at her wrists, she saw they were_ indeed shackled. Huge, rusted chains lashed her arms together, tying her down, powerless. She looked up helplessly, searching the darkness… hoping to see a person's face, hoping to see someone, anyone she knew at all. Hell, she'd even be ecstatic to see her mother._

But it wasn't Maggie standing there.

Two figures watched her, shadowed, but imposing. She knew their names. How could she not? They'd be engraved in her mind forever. And so would the next thing she was about to see.

On the ground beside them, completely motionless, lay a body…

If she could have, Abby would have screamed. She would have done anything to take away the horror she felt. She would have covered her face with her hands. She would have, if they weren't shackled, or if they weren't… covered in blood. Staring down in horror, she saw the thick, crimson, liquid staining her palms, and smearing the scrubs she wore. Instantly, she felt weak.

It was her fault.

The two who were left behind, the two who were alive, they stared silently at her… silently blaming her for the death. She felt like screaming hysterically, only she couldn't. Their eyes were so sad…so sad and so angry it frightened her.

And each of them held a gun.

"Please," she begged, She could hear herself crying, sobbing. "You don't have to do this, you don't have to do this!"

"We got business to take care of." Was all they said. Their voices were cold, too. So cold…

They moved closer…and flashed the light of a torch straight in her eyes. If the darkness was bad, the light was even worse. It illuminated her for exactly what she was, and she couldn't see anything properly… only fragments, snatches.

Helpless.

But she couldn't run, she couldn't hide, she couldn't even scream for help. Was anyone near? Why weren't they coming to get her! Didn't they know she was in danger? She glanced wildly around her.

"Please!" she begged, she pleaded, trying desperately to free herself from her shackles. Why was she shackled anyway?

Was that her fault, too?

She looked up into those cold, black eyes. They were watching her, and her every movement. They could see her very fear, she knew it.

Slowly, they raised their guns. She could see them, blindingly. The torch was still flashing, flashing in her eyes, it wouldn't stop, it wouldn't go away.

Her eyes widened in fear. They were closing in on her, and she couldn't get away. Couldn't even scream, and couldn't get away from that terrifying sadness in their eyes.

"Please!" she whimpered.

"Bitch."

They fired.  


Abby woke with a jolt.

Sweat gathered in small beads upon her face, and her breath was coming in short, drawn gasps. So dark, so cold… Frantically she put a hand over her heart. It was beating. She was shivering… only… she wasn't cold, she was warm. Boiling hot, in fact. But their eyes. They were so sad, so cold. She was sure if she looked into the darkness they would still be there, waiting for her… Abby glanced furtively around her, trying to take in all her surroundings in the same instant. That turned out to be a big mistake. All she saw was a shadowed blur, and her head started a dull throbbing. With a moan, Abby dropped her head backwards and pressed a palm to her temple.

Where the hell was she?

Gradually, her body released its tension, and the throbbing died down. When she concentrated on slowing her breathing, her heartbeat started to calm, too.

Slowly, her surroundings started to bring themselves into focus. It was dark, but gradually her eyes became adjusted, and she could begin to make out shapes. Strangely familiar shapes.

She wasn't in the woods anymore, there were no trees around her, but she could see shapes of… equipment. Hospital equipment. There was a bench close by, and on it she could make out a large degree of clutter, the form of a large lamp lying still and switched off, and behind that, an x-ray screen.

Peering down at her body, she noticed crumpled sheets. So she was in a bed. How exactly had she gotten into a bed? She couldn't seem to remember… it was like a bad hangover, waking up the next morning and not being able to recall just how you had managed to find your way home or elsewhere in one piece. Only Abby didn't have a hangover… and she wasn't exactly home. She couldn't seem to describe _what_ she had, only that it didn't feel clinical.

Carefully, she untangling her limbs from the twisted linen. She winced slightly, as sharp pains shot mercilessly through her arms and legs, beginning somewhere near her joints. _Must be from being out in the cold so long, then sleeping at an awkward angle,_ logical Abby supplied her mind. _Oh_ _shut up, will you? _Irrational Abby snapped.

Abby rubbed her shoulder and pondered… wasn't talking to yourself the first sign of madness? And answering back the second? Oh well…

At length, she managed to disentangle her legs. It was then she noticed her scrubs were gone.

_Gone!_ _Where_ exactly had they gone! _What the…_ She stared blankly at a clean, boring hospital gown. On one hand, it was good to be rid of them, meaning also being rid of the bloodstains. On the other hand, she wondered who exactly had removed them. Did she even want to know? If her vision served her correctly and she _was_ indeed lying in an exam room at County General, then she felt oddly exposed.

Exactly like that moment she had stepped into the light in the ambulance bay. It was a feeling of… not shame, not guilt, but she imagined it was something like how a patient felt as she was doing a rape kit. Not just having what little dignity you're clinging to taken away, but having to let another person be so invasively intimate with you right after perhaps the worst possible experience of your life… and a person you barely knew. One who would be closer to you than most family members, and perhaps never see you again.

It was a feeling of violation, of unwanted attention and of brokenness, while at the same time remembering that it was all in the name of medicine. Those four awful words: to fix you up. How could you ever 'fix up' a person by merely doing a rape kit? How could someone be given the power to try and tell you what was wrong with yourself? Abby's mind wandered to the night Brian had hit her. She'd had to trust Susan that night, only it was different. She knew Susan. They saw each other almost every day. There were things that couldn't go away by being ignored or left unspoken.

Something of that night a few years back had given Abby a little understanding of what it was like to be the patient. And she had a feeling that this night would further it.

Abby's lips formed a bitter smile. Did the world, or karma, or whatever it was, have some way of finding out how to get even with her? So that she had to experience everything in order to understand?"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart, did I wake you?"

Abby jumped. Eyes wide, in the second it took her to unclasp her hands and be vaguely surprised she'd clasped them while ruminating, she jerked her head to face the sound.

"Honey?" 

Across the floor, in the next bed, sat a large black woman dressed in a gown, gazing at her questioningly.

Abby abruptly closed her mouth, realising she'd just been asked a question. 

"I'm sorry?" She began dazedly, unwilling to initiate much at all. But if the old lady sensed her apprehension, she still went right on anyway.

"I was just reachin' across for that bottle o' water, when I accidentally knocked that dish clean off the shelf. And what a colossal sound it made! Hope I didn't wake you, honey?"

The old woman smiled, big black eyes staring kindly across at her through the darkness.

Abby glanced downwards. Sure enough, lying where it had fallen, was a small, metallic, medical dish. If she hadn't been so jumpy, Abby could have laughed at herself for imagining that a dish had been a gunshot-

"You were sleeping so lovely and peaceful and-"

"_No!_ No, It's fine," Abby interjected forcefully, slightly shocked at the vehemence in her own voice.

So was the old lady, apparently, who shrunk back a little into her numerous pillows.

"Alright, If you say so, sweetie."

Abby almost felt sorry for the poor woman… _poor and unsuspecting of the wrath of Abigail Lockhart_, she thought wryly. So she tried to offer a small smile in the effort to apologise, hoping it appeared genuine. Aside, though, she couldn't help but feel odd, at the idea of being called honey, and sweetheart. They sounded like names she might have called a young patient.

An uncomfortable silence followed, Abby resolving to stare at the ceiling. The woman was the first to summon the courage and break it.

"Listen, sweetie, my back ain't what it used to be… time catches up with us all, don't it?"

She gave a little chuckle, but trailed off when she noticed Abby didn't laugh.

"I understand, if you ain't quite up to it," she went on, "but I _am_ awful thirsty and I can't reach that bottle on my own. I bought it myself, from that wonderful machine on the way in. I never did feel thirsty, though, 'till now. I know you just woke up and all, but what would be wonderful, would be if you could…"

Abby shifted her gaze towards the woman. What did she have to lose? She nodded her head. Besides… she couldn't think what else she possibly had to do. She wasn't in _agonising_ physical pain… was the woman? Whatever the case, at least, if nothing else, she could do something for a patient. Perhaps it would make her feel less like a patient herself.

Slowly, Abby sat upwards and swung her legs over the bed. Testing her feet, she figured they could hold her well enough, even if her hip joints did have that annoying deep, dull ache. She tucked her hair behind her ears, rubbed her temples with the flats of her fingers more from habit than anything else, and stood up.

The floor felt cold on her bare feet. Within a few short steps, she'd reached the shelf and picked up the bottle of water. It was one of those plastic kinds, the kind you might get for a dollar from the fridges at the jumbo mart, with the push-top lid and everything. Nothing special. How had the lady brought it with her into the exam room? _Meh, what the heck, _Abby thought. _I'm not really the doctor here anymore._

The plastic was cold in her hand, and the little beads of moisture were heaven to her warm palm. Abby was suddenly possessed by the urge to put the bottle up to her head, like a mock ice-pack. For a crazy moment she was even tempted to drink the lot. Maybe it would get rid of that feeling in the pit of her stomach. Or was it in her head now? She couldn't tell.

Wordlessly, she handed the drink to the old woman.

"Oh, thankyou sweetheart! God bless you."

Abby nodded, smiled weakly and hastily retreated back to her bed. She swung her legs gingerly over the side, biting back a curse when she felt her hip-joint crack. She'd never really _enjoyed_ the sound of cracking bones in their sockets… but at least it pretty much fixed that dull ache. Slowly she rested her head back on the pillows, lying prone and staring up at the ceiling.

There was an ugly stain on the roof. At least she though it was a stain – it was hard to tell in the darkness. She'd never noticed it before. Then again, she didn't often view the ceiling of the ER from this angle. It was very different, seeing things from the patient's perspective. Slightly unsettling. She concentrated harder on the stain. If she squinted, and shut one eye, it looked almost like… a rabbit.

"Might I ask, honey, what're you here for? Pretty girl like you…"

Abby bit her lip and stared hard at the ceiling. That lady _would_ feel the need to keep on talking. _Doesn't she realise I'm not safe to converse with?_ Abby moaned inwardly. The old woman meant well and everything, but honestly, Abby sometimes felt that she had to wear a sign of flashing, bright neon lights, saying when she was in a dangerous state. Perhaps it would solve a few issues. Perhaps every female should be issued one. Yes, that would save a lot of trouble around certain times of the month.

Then again, she considered how lonely the woman must feel, waiting for eternity and beyond in a room that wasn't your own with people who didn't love you. And this lady had struck a terrible roommate, Abby thought morosely.

Abby opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't for the life of her think what. She didn't _feel_ very pretty just now. She knew she certainly couldn't _look_ very pretty in her dishevelled state, the woman was probably just trying to be kind. Even with the bloodied scrubs gone, she still felt strangely dirty. But the thought was beginning to hound her. How many patients did she ask that exact same question of, almost every day? 'What are you here for?' It suddenly sounded so different when you found yourself at the receiving end. And it meant having to admit that something was wrong.

Abby hated to admit things. 

"I… I'm sorry, I'm tired," She ventured into the darkness, defeated by her own question.

"That's ok, dear. I understand. You get back to sleep, now."

_No, no, you don't understand…_ Abby felt like blurting out. _You can't understand. I don't even understand._

Instead, she shut her mouth tightly and rolled over to face the wall. Outside the room, she could vaguely hear people moving, talking, some talking louder than others, some even laughing… voices she thought she recognised, but couldn't have been quite sure. Was that Ray's voice cajoling a nurse to do something for him? Was that Frank's voice bleating that someone had a call through line two? Bleat… could people bleat? Abby's mind supplied the scenes she imagined were taking place outside her little room. The chart rack was probably piled high, the board filled with names, and someone was probably complaining about having to cover for the rest of her shift… _I should be out there,_ she thought to herself._ Working, fixing people, helping people, saving their lives…finding out what's wrong with them. What's wrong with me?_

In Exam Room Two of Cook County General Hospital, sometime past midnight, a tear escaped and rolled down a certain Doctor's cheek.

Right now, she was thankful for the darkness.

No one could see you.

---

Doctor Carter circled the admit desk, reluctant to grab another chart. It had been a long night… too long. One too many vomiting children. There must have been a virus going around, infecting every child within a five mile radius of the hospital. Good thing he'd had his flu shot, he'd probably escape it… but he was really starting to feel for the cleaning staff, yet at the same time feel sheepishly thankful that he didn't have to clean up all that mess. The thought was enough to make him shudder inwardly.

And what was the deal with Abby leaving mid-shift? She, of all people, should have known there were patients that needed taking care of. She needed to take her share of vomiting children too. Her leaving seemed too… insensitive, to the rest of the staff. What had been going through her mind? Absently, he wondered what Weaver would have to say. What a scene that would be.

He yawned and rubbed the back of his neck tiredly, arching and leaning it slightly forward as a tall person does in a crowd. He just wasn't sure, and he didn't quite understand. That was the way it was, he thought with a sigh. Some things about Abby he just didn't understand. Had that been their shortcoming? Neither of them understood?

No, that wasn't right. Of course they'd understood each other, to an extent… as much as two people could have, considering their past, hadn't they? 

Carter swatted the thoughts away as fast as they came. Now was not the time to be thinking about his or her shortcomings… and certainly not past events. Thinking about the past only hurt someone or got you in trouble, as he was quickly deciding these days. 

Glancing over towards curtain three, he spied Morris bellowing ear-splittingly loudly at a patient. The Doctor's arms waved high in the air as his voice grew louder and louder, his face grew redder, and more and more patients turned to gawk. Carter sighed. It had been a long night, and it was getting longer.

Quickly he skirted behind the board without so much as a glance, and walked past a realm of charts. There was a good many, and he looked around to see if anyone else was closing in on them… apparently not. Where did all the Interns go when you needed them? Apart from Morris? Shifting his stethoscope slightly around his neck, Carter shrugged and whipped a chart from its place like second nature, quickly scanning across the information supplied. Elderly woman, complaints of back pain… good. Well, not specifically _good_, but nothing out of the ordinary, and definitely not too messy. He didn't quite feel up to a big surprise. Or another vomiting child.

He strode across the floor, dodging patients, doctors and orderlies without even looking up, and pushed open the door to Exam Two. For barely a moment, he paused, to call over his shoulder,

"Morris, loud English is just as hard to understand as normal English. We don't need an epidemic of hearing loss, so please, go and find Chuny."

Then he stepped inside, where it took him a few seconds to register that the room was in complete darkness. He rubbed the back of his neck again and groaned inwardly. Who turned the lights off in a hospital? Lights were practically always on in a hospital. Well, it seemed like they were, anyway. That's what made the ER seem so devoid of time…

He reached a hand towards the wall and fumbled for the switch. Seconds later, bright hospital light flooded the room, reflecting off everything white, which seemed to be a great many things. Carter blinked a few times, focusing on the smiling woman in the bed. His patient. She didn't seem at all perturbed that he'd suddenly invaded her world with light, nor by the fact that she'd been waiting there for… about five hours, apparently.

Carter switched into Doctor mode, walked over to stand by her bed, and smiled gently down.

"Hello, Mrs… Arbett," he greeted, glancing briefly at his chart. "What seems to be the problem tonight?"

"Well, you see dear," Mrs Arbett began with a smile, "I was bendin' over to pick up one o' my grandchildren, cause we were at the park, and he wanted to get onto the swing. But when I lifted im, I felt this pain, right here in my back, all of a sudden, it's like… Dear? You alright?"

Carter wasn't listening. He wasn't even looking at her. During his patient's spiel, he had done the very thing he always told his students never to do: he had trailed off. 

And his face was a picture of slow shock and realisation, as he stared with wide eyes at a figure in the very next bed, lying on its side, facing the other wall. He was sure he knew that figure. He'd gazed at it before. He was sure he knew that hair, that couldn't seem to decide wether it was brown or blonde…

"Dear, are you alright?" The old lady repeated, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Uhh…" he began, unsure of what to do. That figure, in the next bed… it couldn't be. He could see on the bench behind her, a pair of dirty scrubs, smeared with dark stains…

"I'm sorry, Mrs Arbett," Carter apologised quickly, "Could I get back to you in just a second?"

He didn't wait for a reply, but turned around and exited the room. Fast.

Once outside, he immediately bumped shoulders with Susan.

"Carter!" she exclaimed, surprised. "I was just going in to-"

"Was that… Abby, in there?"

He asked incredulously, jabbing his thumb at the door behind him.

Susan stared.

"You mean… you haven't heard?"

"Heard? About what? Did something happened to her?" Carter questioned in disbelief. "I mean, what's she doing in there? I thought she… we thought she was-"

"Yes I _know_ what we thought!" 

Susan interrupted so fiercely, that Carter was taken aback. He gaped at her, searching her eyes for any sign that might tell him what the hell was going on.

"I know what we all though, Carter," she repeated, but this time with a tinge of guilt seeping into her voice.

Carter stared at her. It must have been his Doctor's instinct that put two and two together, because suddenly, he sensed that Abby hadn't left mid-shift at all. And judging by Susan's frazzled nerves and the uncertainty in her eyes, that whatever was going on, _she_ felt responsible for.

Carter mentally kicked himself. After all the things he'd just been thinking of… how could he have blamed Abby? How could he have thought she'd leave in the middle of a shift? She had her hang-ups, true enough, but she was a Doctor – dedicated to her patients.

But if she hadn't left… were _had_ she gone?

"I'm sorry, Carter," Susan began, rubbing her eyes wearily. "I just assumed the whole floor knew by now."

"It's ok, Susan, but… what happened to her?"

"Well, we thought wrong," she replied softly as they both turned and stood side by side, watching an unmoving Abby. Carter couldn't tell wether Susan was dodging his question, or just being plain mysterious. He decided on the latter.

"I suppose we did."

"You suppose?" Susan questioned with a hint of sarcasm, folding her arms across her chest and tilting her head ever so slightly to the right. The still figure of Abby shifted slightly.

"Well, I mean," Carter started guiltily, "Do _you_ know what's going on?"

"No, I don't, Carter," Susan replied matter-of-factly, "But do you see those scrubs over there?"

Oh yes. He had.

"Yeah. She wasn't… wearing those, was she?" He asked suspiciously, thinking of the dark stains.

"Yes, she was."

"You don't think that she could she have been-"

"I don't know!" Susan burst fretfully as she shook her head and hugged her arms all the more tightly.

"Anything's possible!" She went on, before Carter could get a word in edgewise. "I mean, I was just going in to check if she'd woken up yet, to see if I could get any sense out of her…"

Susan's voice gradually rose in pitch.

"…Cause when I found her, my God, you should have seen her. Wearing that blood, I held her and she was crying so hard, I've never seen her like that before, and It was so… so…" Susan searched for a word… without success.

"…it was all my fault!"

Susan trailed off as Carter stared hard at Abby. Beside him, he could hear quiet sniffles, and he began to understand. He was seeing a different side to the Susan he knew. Her job really was taking it's toll. It wasn't an easy thing to manage hospital staff, let alone manage your friends… and to see a friend, whom you had been calling most of the night to leave unsavoury messages on their answering machine, to see your friend like that… must have been just about, well, too much.

Carter reached an arm around Susan's shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze.

"Susan, whatever it was, wasn't your fault."

"But it was… oh it was. I shouldn't have been so vindictive. Or controlling… I mean, reviewing three months of charts? God, what was I thinking-"

"Susan, it's not your fault. Alright? And somehow I don't think it'll be Abby's fault either. So you're going to have to tell her that. Ok? Susan?"

Carter felt Susan tighten against arm, but finally she nodded her head, and whispered, "Ok."

Wordlessly, he fished in his coat pocket and handed her what looked like a clean handkerchief.

"Thankyou Carter," she sniffled, giving a small chuckle.

Carter gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze. And Susan, despite herself, was amused.

"Who carries around pocket handkerchiefs now, anyway?"

Carter laughed.

"Well, you know what they say. Old habits…"

"…they die hard." 

"Yes, they do."

"Well, what arewe going to do with you, then?"

"I have no idea." Carter chuckled, rubbing his brow with the back of his hand.

Susan nudged him playfully. Then, after a moment's silence, she nodded her head in the direction of Abby.

"Hey, I think she's awake…"

The pair watched in silence as Abby slowly lifted a hand to tuck and smooth her crumpled hair.

"Unless she just does that in her sleep…"

"Carter, please."

"Sorry. Listen, Susan… do you need me to do the exam?"

"No. Thanks, anyway, but I think should do it. She probably doesn't even know how she got there in the first place… I've never seen someone out of it so fast."

Carter nodded silently. His mind was beginning to consider possibilities. Glancing at her face, he could see Susan's was too. Still there was one more thing left to be said… and neither of them felt like saying it. Finally, Carter released his breath and forced himself.

"Do you want a rape kit?"

"No, not yet." Susan murmured. "I don't know if she's actually physically hurt. I didn't see anything on the surface, if you know what I mean… But we won't really know until we talk to her. She seems a lot more settled now, so I'll give it a shot. But if I need anything…"

"Just come and get me, ok?"

"Ok, thanks."

Susan glanced up at Carter, and gave him a quick smile, before worming her way out of his grip. He smiled comfortingly, and turned to go back to the admit desk and grab a new chart.

Chart? Chart! That reminded him.

"Oh, Susan! My patient? Mrs Arbett…"

Susan paused, hands against the door.

"Could you give us awhile? I'll tell her you're on official Doctor's business. Either that or I'll see If we can get her moved. By the looks of it, anyway, she's fairly patient."

"Guess that's why they call 'em patients."

"Yeah… thanks."

"Hey, no problem."

Susan took a deep breath, and pushed open the doorway.


	3. Friends, Foes, Fears

**AG (Author's Gabble): **Deep red blush. I do not deserve the kindness I'd gotten! My thanks to everyone who has reviewed. Your thoughts and comments mean a lot to me. Seriously! What would a story be without the feedback?

Many thanks also, to Dubenko Junkie for pointing out that Intern/Resident thing… sorry, my mistake! Thanks for picking that up, I've gone and fixed it. Like I said, I am not a Doctor, and I am not American… so there are bound to be mistakes in my writing.

I really love it, when you review, if you tell me these things… also, when you tell me specifically _what_ you loved or hated, or anything that struck you… hint hint, wink wink. I am still learning, after all!

**AD (Author's Disclaimer): **Everything to do with ER I disclaim. It would be nice if things were otherwise. Then perhaps there _would_ have been an episode in between Abby's kidnapping and the next one. But hey, all I can do is dream, and write.**  
**

**  
Chapter 3 – Friends, Foes, Fears**

"Her temperature is only slightly above normal, but the swab indicates that strep throat is out of the picture for now, so I'd say it's just a bad case of flu. What I suggest, Mr Thomas, is that you take Emily home for some rest. Come back if she starts vomiting, or develops any belly pains or rashes."

"So we won't need antibiotics?"

Neela smiled her lovely smile.

"No, not for now."

"Thankyou, thankyou very much. Emily? Can you say thankyou to the Doctor?"

"Fankyou, Doctor."

"That's ok, Emily."

Neela watched with satisfaction as the Father scooped up his small daughter. Another case solved, another patient happy. It was the methodical way she worked – she liked to get things done, and get them done well. She hated multi-charting. It was hard enough to work through an armload of patients systematically, let alone thoroughly. With the amount of patients she was expected to discharge per shift, she often wondered if each of them were getting the best possible treatment. She wondered more so about Ray's treat em and street em ethics… how could he even feel like he was doing a thorough job?

Neela also wondered if any other Doctors felt uncomfortable going backwards and forwards constantly between each patient… she found it especially hard to remember their names. Especially when she often remembered a person by the injury or disease that they were carrying as opposed to their name.

She'd found that it wasn't generally the best way to get on a patient's good side.

With a slight sigh, Neela flipped back the page to another chart.

"Emily Thomas has been discharged?"

Neela glanced up.

"Yes, Doctor Kovac," she replied to the tall, dark Croatian looming over her. "It wasn't strep for now, but I advised rest and told them to come back if any more symptoms occurred."

"Good." Luka nodded his approval. "And the damaged wrist in four?"

"I sent them up for an x-ray, just to be sure. Mother and brother are waiting in the family room."

"Good, good."

Luka stared hesitantly down at her. He wavered perhaps a bit longer than he should have, which only served to make Neela feel uncomfortable. Her large, dark eyes darted nervously about.

"I, uh, ordered an RF for the teenage girl in exam three. Swelling, joint pain, dry and itchy nose and eyes… the history seemed to fit."

"Ok, that's great."

Neela nodded, and furrowed her brow. Still Luka didn't move.

"If it's negative, I think, uh, we may need to order another one," she tried again.

Luka nodded, and stayed put. He made as if he was about to speak… it seemed to Neela like he was hesitant to ask her something.

"Doctor Kovac?" She questioned, eyebrows raised.

"Have you been to see how Abby's doing?" He finally asked.

"Well… no, I – I haven't yet…" Neela stuttered, suddenly caught off guard. Dammit, she shouldn't have let a question like that catch her off guard… did that mean she'd forgotten so soon? His question reminded her… how _was_ Abby doing?

The last she'd seen of her, Neela had been standing by the desk. That's it. If she remembered correctly, she'd actually been laughing… something stupid that Doctor Carter had quipped off-handedly before quickly scooting off to deal with a patient. What had it been? He'd seemed a lot more light hearted lately, perhaps thanks to the help of a certain social worker. It had been some sort of awful joke about the ER becoming a barber-shop, and it had made her snort unceremoniously. She remembered _that_ clearly. It had only set everyone else off laughing, making it even worse.

It had caught her completely by surprise when Luka had burst through the doors, carrying an insanely large, shivering bundle. All around her, the laughing had died down.

"Oh my…" someone started, trailing off into oblivion.

Neela stopped, mid laugh, and did a double take – the thing in Luka's arms wasn't a shivering bundle, it was in fact a shivering Abby. She then looked insanely small, and fragile. 

"What the?" She'd heard herself blurt out stupidly. She'd felt her coffee slip from her fingers, and heard it spill all over the floor at admit. She'd half expected Frank to bellow at her, but there wasn't so much to be heard as the crying of a small child somewhere in the background.

Before her mind could register what she was doing, she'd felt herself jogging along to catch up with Luka. She's found herself saying,

"What happened, Doctor Kovac? What can I do to help?"

"I don't know – Susan, can you get a bed in exam two? – I'm sorry, Neela, I don't know."

"But I can help-"

"_Not now_, Neela."

And she'd stopped in her tracks, staring stupidly at the door as it swung closed in her face.

Inside, she could vaguely make out Luka lying Abby down on the bed. She could see Susan hovering nearby in the background.

Then she'd heard a throaty yell, in a voice that was unmistakably Abby's.

"PLEASE NO!"

Neela's eyes widened. In all her months of sleeping on Abby's couch, she'd never once heard her yell in fear, or in anger. For all the respect she held for Abby, Neela was suddenly very frightened…

"Neela?"

Neela swiftly snapped out of her daydream.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Doctor Kovac? Um, do you know how she is?"

"No, I was hoping you had some idea. Have you been to see her at all?"

"No, I haven't."

"Listen, Neela…" Luka started, spreading his palm as if in a peace offering, "I… I'm sorry for blowing you off earlier. It just wasn't a good time. I had as little idea of what was happening as you did, and I shouldn't have…"

"That's ok. It's fine." Neela interrupted breathlessly. "You don't need to apologise."

"No, I should, and I'm sorry. And I think you should go and see Abby."

Neela turned her face away as a warm blush rose in her cheeks. Truth be told, she felt guilty. Not just guilty because she called herself Abby's friend, and yet she hadn't even tried to find out about her health, but also because she'd partly forgotten, and gone systematically on with her work. Was there a friend that needed her? She'd never been good with the instinctive, emotional side of things. She didn't have that 'special touch'. When it came down to it, she didn't even know what had gone on with Abby. How could she comfort a friend when she didn't even know what was wrong?

Could she tell Luka the reasons why she hadn't been? Could she tell him that she was scared? Did he already sense it?

"Oh, ok."

Luka offered a warm smile. Yes, he most definitely sensed it. No doubt about it. He was trying to encourage her, to make her feel like she was needed. If only she wasn't afraid.

Luka turned around to leave.

_Dammit, Neela, you're a Doctor. You can do this. All of this. Pull yourself together._

"I… I might just go and check on that girl, with the RF," Neela called after him, willing him to turn back around.

Luka glanced at her over his shoulder.

"Ok."

"Ok…"

"Neela?"

"Yes, Doctor Kovac?"

"If the first RF comes back negative, do another one."

"Alright."

"Alright."

"And, uh, Doctor Kovac?"

"Yes?"

"I…I might go and see Abby, perhaps after that?"

"Good."

"Ok."

Luka smiled, and turned to walk down the hallway.

---

Abby smoothed her hair quietly. It was ruffled and tangled, and she would have given anything to just brush it all out. Perhaps not as much as she would have given to turn the lights back off, but still. She could wish. She didn't have anything better to do.

She contemplated getting off the bed and embarking upon a perilous expedition entitled: Operation Lights Off. Well, she knew Mrs Arbett certainly wouldn't be getting up anytime soon… it was almost laughable how much it suddenly seemed like such a brave feat to get up and walk around. She didn't dare, though. She didn't know who was watching her. Abby had the eerie feeling that eyes were upon her, somewhere, even though she couldn't see them.

An image of cold, dark eyes flashed in her mind. Abby shivered.

She knew that at least _he_ had seen her, already.

In her own mind, he seemed to have taken on the role of _he_. He existed as a person who'd once loved her, a person whom she had once loved and still cared for, yet sometimes, wasn't sure how to name. Carter felt far too informal, far too like the old days. Those days were gone, now, wether she liked it or not. And John felt too intimate. It reminded her of things that were still too close for comfort. Memories, feelings that she didn't completely trust herself with yet. Those days were over, too… so what did that leave her with? Was his name stuck somewhere in limbo land? Was she?

Abby shut her eyes and drew a slow breath. Questions flooded her mind. How could one night change so quickly? Why did there have to be another patient in the room? Why couldn't County General have designed the place so that each patient had their own individual room? Yeah, that would be the life. Why was it, that one hour into a shift she could yawn endlessly, and yet when she'd been blindingly awake for one terrible night she couldn't seem to get the sleep her body was craving?

Then again, what your body craved wasn't always the same as what your mind did.

Why did she want no one to touch her, to speak to her or even come near her, yet at the same time she craved a shoulder to cry on, and a pair of warm, loving arms?

Abby hugged her arms closer around herself. She didn't feel cold, and yet she was. She was cold for something else, something that wasn't physical. Cold for closeness, for dependence, for someone to tell her she was going to be fine. Cold for that warmth an extra coat wasn't going to give her… yet at the same time, desperately hopeful that whatever person could give it to her would suddenly forget about it and move on with their lives, as soon as they'd connected with her.

Things that lasted were always the hardest to bear. You never knew what was going happen next. And you couldn't ignore them.

Abby sighed and rubbed the cold skin on the backs of her hands. Loneliness was her heaven, and her hell.

Would she ever learn to live with other people? Or herself?

Behind her, the door suddenly opened and closed. Abby listened quietly as voices from the outside world became loud and clear for a moment, before fading back into anonymity.

Footsteps sounded across the hard linoleum. Was he back again? Abby held her breath. She couldn't deal with this, not now, not here. The footsteps came closer. Someone grabbed a stool, and wheeled it across the floor. The noise grated in her ears, but Abby forced her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.

"Hey, Abby, it's me."

Abby opened her eyes.

"Susan," she croaked, and half-recoiled from herself. Was that voice hers?

"Yeah," Susan smiled and folded her arms, leaning forward till they rested on her knees. "Me."

Abby looked at Susan, sitting there expectantly. She supposed she had to do something. Gingerly, she sat herself up and crossed her legs, feeling Susan's eyes on her all the time. It was uncomfortable, but at the same time, not so lonely anymore.

Susan sported a friendly smile, but it was awhile before either of them spoke. Abby stared downwards at the hands that rested limply in her lap. Susan continued her silence, and Abby guessed that she was waiting, waiting for her to speak first. She opened her mouth, racking her brain for something useful to say. Anything, at all, to break that uncomfortable silence. Nothing remotely useful appeared. 

So instead, she asked a question that had been plaguing her since she woke up.

"How did I get in?"

"Luka carried you."

"Oh."

Silence again.

"And the gown…"

"That was me."

"Oh."

Abby glanced at her gown, around at the room, then back at Susan, who still stared expectantly at her. Abby had no idea what else to say, she didn't know how to begin. Most of all, she was afraid of what would happen when she did begin. Afraid of how she was going to stop. She didn't know if she could handle it. Or if Susan could.

Most things considered, she decided to take the path of ignorance… that one was usually fairly safe. Raising her brows innocently, she looked up at Susan.

"You know, there's really nothing to talk about."

Susan exhaled, visibly. It was as if she'd prepared for that very answer.

"Yes there is, Abby, or you wouldn't be back here."

"What are talking about?" Abby shrugged and half-smiled.

"If there really _was_ nothing to talk about, you would have gone straight home."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Yes, you would."

"No, I… I… I was just…" Abby retorted with an edge in her voice, searching unsuccessfully for an excuse. Any excuse…

"You were just what? You just _happened_ to be standing outside, waiting?"

"I wasn't waiting, I just… I wasn't feeling so good for a moment, that's all. Susan, it's nothing."

"Oh, and it just so happened," Susan sat upright and spread her palms for emphasis, "That you chose to be in our ambulance bay?"

"I didn't _choose_ to be in _our_ ambulance bay, _Susan,_ I-"

"Ohhh, so you just picked one at random and sat there waiting for someone to find you-"

"No, I did not, and I said before, I _wasn't_ waiting, I-"

"What the hell _were_ you doing here, then?"

"THAT'S WHERE THEY LEFT ME!" Abby suddenly exploded with a passion.

Susan stared, eyes wide.

"What do you mean _they_?"

Abby suddenly baulked, breathing rapidly and shrinking backwards. 

Leaning forwards Susan placed a hesitant hand over Abby's.

"Abby, I'm sorry, I-"

"Please, no, I said I wouldn't say anything." Abby mumbled and snapped her hand back, staring intently at the floor.

The phrase sounded like something a stubborn five year old might have said, but Susan heard the tremor in her voice, no mistake. _Why?_ She thought, _why is she so stubborn? If I were her… I'd want to scream. But you're not her, Susan Lewis, so keep your cool, for goodness sake. Maybe, just maybe this is her way of screaming._

She took a deep breath.

"What do you mean you promised?"

Abby met Susan's eyes. If she hadn't felt so tired, she probably would have tried to be defiant. But she didn't have the energy left to. 

What began as a bold stare gradually melted into a silent pleading.

"Please…" she whispered, desperately.

Susan was shocked to see tears glistening, but even more shocked to see fear in the eyes of her friend. Was this the same Abby who'd stalked out on her boss hours ago? The Abby who'd happily mouth off at a person if they pissed her off, who was never frightened to tell them exactly _why_ she was pissed off, and was willing to say just what was on her mind? She'd never viewed Abby as a fearful person.

To look into soft brown eyes of a person whom you trusted, cared for and respected, and to see those eyes wide with fear and pleading, was disconcerting.

Susan glanced over Abby's shoulder. Across in the next bed, Mrs Arbett was gaping across at the action, somewhat aghast.

Without another word, Susan gave Abby's arm a hesitant pat. Then she hopped up and poked her head out the doorway.

"Haleh? Could you come and park Mrs Arbett in the hallway, and tell Doctor Carter she's ready to be seen?"

The nurse paused, then nodded her head.

"Am I bein' moved?" Mrs Arbett asked, as Haleh strode into the room and instantly clicked up her rails, wheeling the bed towards the doorway without so much as an explanation.

"Yes, you are, dear. Doctor Carter will be seeing you in the hallway."

"Thankyou," Abby heard Susan murmur, as she sat unmoving on her bed. "Let me get that door for you."

A tear slowly fell from her burning eyes and landed on her upturned palm. She hastily wiped the others away before they had the chance to betray her completely. The click-clack of Susan's shoes sounded on the floor as she walked around to sit in front of her again.

Susan leaned in, and watched her intently.

"What do you mean, 'they', Abby?"

Abby drew a deep breath.

"Susan," she started, trying to control that evil waver in her voice, "I know this sounds strange, but could you turn the lights off?"

Without another word, Susan nodded and smiled. Abby watched her stand up in search of the switch, feeling a pained expression on her face.

She didn't deserve a friend like Susan. She didn't deserve anyone to be so understanding. She wasn't deserving of that extra warmth.

A small sliver of light reached through the blinds, glancing across Susan's white coat as she sat down on the stool and patiently waited.

_She's waiting for me,_ thought Abby.

Abby took a deep breath.

_Here goes nothing._


	4. Dark Hour

**Greetings, from the author: **G'day! How's your billy boiling? Ahem. Now that's out of my system, I want to thankyou, for all the kindness you've shown in your reviews… and thanks very for also telling me things that you _specifically_ liked! It helps a lot, when writing. Feedback is a wonderful thing.

Also, some people have been saying that I should update faster… and as much as I would _like_ to, unfortunately, I am in my last year of school and things tend to get more than a little busy. So I'll try to get in updates at least once a week, but I'm not going to be any speed demon. I apologise, but there's not much else I can do.

I also apologise for a couple typos in the last chapter… largely due to the fact that when I read over my work, my mind injects what _I_ think should be there, not always what _is_ there. So I apologise in advance for any more you come across.

** Disclaimer:** ER _plus_ ME _equals:_ I DO NOT OWN. 

Need I be more specific?

**Chapter 4 – "Dark Hour"**

"Ahh… _Aster_?"

"Yeah, like the flower. They're my mom's favourite. You know which ones they are?"

A tall, curvaceous, fair skinned girl with clear blue eyes sat stiffly on the gurney and smiled bashfully. Her dark blonde hair seemed to match her eyebrows exactly, also the funny, pale brown colour of her t-shirt, Neela noticed.

"Uh, yes. I think so."

Neela smiled back, embarrassed. She'd found, ever since she'd started the practical part of medicine that it hadn't agreed with her quite so much. She often missed the comfort of a little dorm room, when she'd been surrounded by books, the desk lamp burning over her shoulder and the hours ticking slowly away. She'd felt secure, then. She'd even go so far as to say comfortable, or happy. Everything was predictable, and could be learned by flicking to the correct page. Or you could ask your professor the next day. And her grades were predictable. Always soaring. Soaring…

It was when she was here, under the bright hospital lights, putting into practise all she'd read about, that she started to feel unsure about herself. She couldn't control whatever was going to happen next. It wasn't written in any textbook, and no one could tell her how to handle it. It was going to be by experience alone. There wasn't going to be any flicking to the next page, and finding the answer written in small, orderly, black print.

Neela hated that. And she hated herself for being embarrassed. She hated herself for not having the right instinctive touch, not with the old man and his cancer, not with the pregnant teenager, not with the man whose wife she couldn't remember, not even with Abby. She hated the fact that about three-quarters the way through a twelve hour shift, she was sitting beside a bed in exam three, facing another emotionally taxing case. She was sure Doctor Kovac and Doctor Lewis were out to get her, trying to drain her emotions completely… what she had left of them, when she was working, anyway.

And, apparently, her patient satisfaction scores had majorly sucked. Damn numbers. How could they suddenly describe, all at once, the way she went about her job? She hated that.

She'd found she seemed to be hating a lot of things, lately. Was there still something that she liked? Hmmm… medical procedures, she liked those. The kind where you knew exactly what you were going to do next. Luka's words echoed in her mind… "You're gifted technically, Neela. You just need to find a way to bring that confidence over to the other side of your game…"

It was harder then it looked, though. And it wasn't a game… not the sort you played for fun, anyhow. At least, with a procedure, you could be prepared. They were written out in lovely, tidy black type, for you to go and look up. Nice, neat, perfect. Tidy words, no stupid little numbers that told you exactly what you did wrong, or unexpected changes. Oh, and coffee, she liked coffee. She could do with another one right now. Her last one had been mopped up only a few hours ago. She'd barely even gotten a mouthful.

Neela stifled the urge to yawn. Now, of all times? Why did she have to be tired on top of uneasy, and why did Aster's eyes have to be so steady, and staring, and… and… blue? A vague memory flashed across Neela's mind of driving across the English countryside, the sun shining down in a picture postcard kind of way, and clusters of Asters by the roadside… all their petals a clear, pure blue.

Neela had something very important to say to this girl. Things that were going to change this girl's life. Things she didn't want to say, but was forced to. And she hated it.

"Right, Aster."

Aster smiled again. _She smiles an awful lot,_ Neela mused tensely. _You never would have thought she felt any pain at all._

It was poignant, really. Neela liked that word, 'poignant'. So much description in such a small word, really. She was big on package deals, economising, and disliked wasting space… and that word wasn't a space waster. She especially like the look of it when it was written out. But she hated feeling it.

_Sitting… in lounge…with coffee… _Neela glanced behind her shoulder, wishing desperately that she might close her eyes, and that when she opened them she would be somehow magically sitting in the lounge, a steaming cup warming her hands. It had been a draining shift, full of… well… failures. And now, Neela was afraid she was going to fail again.

"So, Aster, you said you stopped sport over a year ago. That was because of the pain, right?"

Aster's smile faded slightly. It became more wistful, if anything.

"Yeah. It just hurt too much. And I… I couldn't keep letting my team down."

"I'm sure you wouldn't have let your team down at all."

"Thanks," Aster smiled self-consciously, and tucked an odd coloured strand of hair behind her ear.

Neela told herself that that was good. It was good that she'd made the patient smile. It was written in all the textbooks… make positive statements, make the patient feel at ease and try to develop connection, and trust. It was written in all the textbooks, nicely, plainly, neatly.

Aster suddenly looked up, and interrupted Neela's thoughts.

"I… I also stopped playing piano recently. I couldn't move my fingers fast enough."

Neela's heartbeat seemed to speed to twice its normal rate. It was never easy, telling a patient what sort of nasty disease they had, but why did it have to be the good ones that got cut down? Why did it have to be the ones who were active, alert and enjoying life? Why couldn't it have been some lazy kid who never got off the couch anyway? It wasn't fair.

"You didn't say that before." Neela reprimanded quietly.

"Yeah, I know." Aster began fiddling with the belt loop of her jeans, and Neela noticed how stiffly her fingers worked their way around the blue strap. It was a miracle, really, that she'd kept on playing an instrument as long as she had. Neela wiggled her own fingers. She could probably still use them for the viola… it had been awhile, though, before they'd touched any instrument besides a surgical one. She took a deep breath, and continued.

"I want you to know that I ordered an RF on your blood sample. Now an RF is a special test, it actually stands for 'Rheumatoid Factor'."

Aster nodded without looking up. She continued to slowly loop her stiff fingers through the small strap in her jeans. In and out, curling around, slowly uncurling, twisting painfully… Neela straightened her own fingers abruptly, as if afraid they might stiffen up just by watching. She forced herself to look at the girl's down turned head.

"What an RF does, is test for certain things in your blood…"

The girl went right on fiddling with that belt loop. Neela hesitated for a moment. The urge was strong to run away, fast, and call social work… let them deal with a teenage girl who was going to have half her life wrenched away. It took a lot of willpower for Neela to grit her teeth, and force herself to finish. Then all at once, she found herself releasing every word in one breath.

"…I think you may test positive for a disease called Rheumatoid Arthritis, which means you may need medication and could perhaps be eligible for surgery later on in your life, depending on wether or not you want-"

"I can't play piano again, can I?"

Aster stopped fiddling with her belt loop and looked up.

Neela stared straight back. _She's blunt. And she already guesses it…oh this is harder than I want. Please let it be over. _Neela wasn't one to beat around the bush herself, and she hated people who constantly made up excuses… so she forced herself to answer back. At a time like this, excuses were meaningless.

"No, you might not."

Her patient looked down, and wordlessly resumed twisting her stiff fingers around the belt loop. The knuckles were still swollen, even after the time since Neela had done the exam. 

Neela glanced cautiously around the room, wondering if anyone else was watching, but was met with the boring print of a curtain… that's right, she remembered drawing it when she'd walked in. Hmm… that would explain it. She gazed back at Aster, and all of a sudden, she was possessed with the urge to cry.

_You are a teenage girl with arthritis, _Neela spoke inside her head, hoping that she might somehow be blessed with the sudden gift of telepathy, _and you can't play piano again. My fingers are perfect, and I haven't played the viola in years.  
_  
Time seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly, Neela not daring to speak and Aster twisting and untwisting her fingers. _Please say something. Ask a question, anything, _Neela pleaded silently._ I can deal with questions. It's the silence I can't stand._

After what felt to Neela to be a painstaking eternity, the girl suddenly lifted her head to look her straight in the eye. Neela wanted to runaway from that staring, blue gaze. Again she fought the urge to up and call the social work 'lifeline'… and in her mind, she saw the flowers in the country side, reaching out earnestly to the sun with their lovely, clear blue petals…

"Arthritis?"

"Yes." Neela released a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding. "While it's not curable, it is treatable, and with medication you can lead a fairly normal life."

"I thought older people got arthritis."

Aster stared at Neela, straight and unblinkingly.

"No, actually, rheumatoid arthritis can show up in a small child. Sometimes without any family history. It's a very different type to the elderly onset version."

Neela blurted strings of words from textbooks that had told her about rheumatoid arthritis. Perhaps it would have worked, were she turned the other way and watching the boring print of the curtain, but looking into those eyes, the aster coloured eyes, made every explanation feel deathly insufficient. Completely meaningless.

"Can I call your Mom or Dad?" Neela asked, half standing already.

"No… they're away for the weekend. I've been sleeping at my friend's. I… I don't want to see her just yet."

"Well, do the family of your friend know where you are?"

"Yeah. They dropped me off here."

"Alright, then, as long as they know. I'll have to call you parents, though, anyway-"

"They don't have a cell phone."

"They don't?"

"They'll be heading back in an hour or so. They'll be home by morning. You can try then, if you like."

"Ok."

Neela nodded, and turned to go. For a moment, she lingered. She had that awful feeling, the one she got whenever she knew there was so much more she could have said or done… but a few more steps, she tried not to appear too eager to leave nor too hesitant, and then she was out of the curtain. Away from the boring print, and those staring blue eyes.

Swinging open the door and walking back into the mass of people and reality, Neela was suddenly struck by something.

The girl had never even cried.

---

"Mrs Arbett?"

"Oh, you're back again!"

"Yes, dear. Now, where were we?"

"The pain in my back."

"Ah, yes. Have you… ever felt any unexplained pains in your back, your neck, or other joints before this time? Any headaches, at all?"

"Well no, not really. My bones have always been good for my age, you know? It was just then, when I bent down to pick up my grandson. Ooh, what a colossal pain it was!"

Carter nodded and smiled warmly, as the large black woman gestured expressively with her hands. She had a certain way of speaking. It was slow, slightly drawn out, and never in a hurry. It was good to hear a voice every now and again that wasn't in a hurry… a rare occurrence, in the ER. Sometimes, it felt like all they ever did was shout at each other for a couple more units of O-neg… well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. They shouted at each other various _other_ replacement bodily fluids, too…

Carter loved those rare moments when he ran into another doctor in the lounge or in the hallway and they weren't so busy as to pass each other by without a smile, or a hello. Perhaps he was old fashioned, but if he was, he didn't care. He'd take a few peaceful, unhurried, old-fashioned moments over another litre of saline any day. It reminded him that they were all still human.

"Dear, are you alright?"

"Oh – Mrs Arbett, I'm sorry… where were you?"

Damn. He called himself a Doctor. He'd called himself one for years, and now he was trailing off in the middle of a patient's well-meant speech… twice, to make matters worse. To the same patient.

True, she'd been making more friendly small talk than anything else, but he had to confess, his mind wasn't as on the job as it should have been.

"Only when I picked up my grandkid, this afternoon. That's when I felt the pain."

"Ah… I see." Carter quickly grounded himself. Time to switch on the Doctor button again. He went on.

"If you'll just sit up and lean forward, dear, I'll have a look at your back. That's perfect, yes… ok, does it hurt here? No? How about here? And here?"

Carter released his fingers as the old lady tensed and sprouted a little 'ouch'.

"Oookay, Mrs Arbett. You can sit back, now. But I'd like to ask you: have you tried using proper lifting techniques when picking up your grandchildren? Or any sort of lifting, really?"

"Oh… proper lifting techniques?" Mrs Arbett inquired blankly.

Carter had thought as much. Still, couldn't hurt to be sure there wasn't anything else going on, especially with her age.

"Ok, then. I think it's probably just a strain, but we'll do a few quick tests to make sure, and you should be right to go. But not before we give you a few proper lifting techniques, Mrs Arbett, making sure you bend at the knees. Your grandchildren will thank you for it, I'm sure."

Mrs Arbett beamed thankfully up at him.

"Thankyou, honey, God bless you."

"Mhmm. You too."

Carter tapped the rail of her bed with his clipboard affectionately, and turned around to leave.

Absently, the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and yawned as he made his way _through_ the hallway… You never made your way _down_ the hallway in the ER, it was always _through_… like swimming through a sea, only a sea of people. Everyone was going every which way at once, and if you weren't on your guard… you'd most likely be on the receiving end of an orderly's, another doctor's or worse, a nurse's wrath.

Speaking as such, he suddenly spotted Neela traipsing slowly down the hallway. She looked as if she was lost… which was odd, she should have known the hospital like the back of her hand by now. It never took that long.

He shifted his stethoscope and sped into a little jog to reach her faster, dodging a passing trolley in the nick of time.

"Hey, Neela?" he began, catching her attention through the mass of people and coming to rest in front of her, "You look lost. Need a few directions?"

"Uh…" Neela's dark eyes darted uncertainly about. "Is it… exam two, for Abby?"

"Yep, sure is."

"Ok," she flashed a nervous little grin. "Thankyou, Doctor Carter."

"No problem!" He called after her escaping, white coated back.

Carter stood and fiddled absently with the metal clasp on his clipboard. For a second, he was tempted to follow Neela… he was as anxious as the next person to hear what the story was going to be, also concerned for the wellbeing of a person he would call a friend. But he decided to go against feeling and let the girls have their time together, first.

After all, it might not have been something that was easily discussed with a man.

He turned around to head in the opposite direction, and gazed at the masses of moving people.

Why did they call it a hallway, anyway? It wasn't really a '_way'_, when it got clogged up so easily, was it?

Carter sniffed, and started to find his way through to the other end.

---

"I… went outside, to wait on the MVA."

Abby started at the very beginning. "A very good place to start…" Julie Andrews sang gleefully, somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind that remembered all the movies she'd watched as a kid and seemed to conjure them up at the most inappropriate times. _Oh, shut up,_ irrational Abby snapped spitefully… not that she really had a special spite for The Sound of Music, she just wasn't in the mood to sing.

She was fairly sure she was the beginning… it was hard to tell, when she didn't want her mind to provide images to accompany words she was saying. She didn't want her mind to supply the memories to the facts she was trying to remember… facts over feelings, objective over subjective, that was her motto. That was what had gotten her out of deep and meaningfuls with the school guidance counsellors, that was what had sustained her through the illness of a person she both hated and loved, that was where she wanted to be. 

She'd had a phobia of freefalling, even when she was a kid. Climbing trees was fine, reaching out for the sturdy branches and gradually inching your way to the top… but falling was a different story. When you hit the ground, you hit it damn hard. She remembered a few times of going to theme parks, with her friends, in big groups on the weekend… it was pure elation, the smell of popcorn, candy-floss and little-kiddish excitement all merging together and getting in your blood, making you want to do crazy, random things. All the excitement made it downright embarrassing to say to a group of your teenage friends that you didn't want to ride the rollercoaster. It was even more embarrassing when they asked why… when they gazed questioningly at her with wide, naïve eyes, how could she expect them to understand? She hated the feeling of speeding down, down, careening uncontrollably to who knows where. She'd seen her mother fall far too many times. Fall so far into big black pools of raging emotions, it made Abby afraid to fall, ever.

She'd asked her mom a question, once, when she'd been about eight years old. She'd tried asking her teacher already, who had only ruffled her hair and murmured uselessly, "You are a strange one, Abigail." Abby had poked her tongue out when the teacher turned her back… she hating having her hair ruffled, and hated being called Abigail. Maggie had been in one of her motherly moods, the type where she loved Eric and Abby to cuddle close and ask her things, so Abby had went ahead; "Why don't we have an explaining button, Mom? You just press it, and people always know 'zactly what you're trying say without saying it?" "Well, what would be the point in saying it, then?" Had been Maggie's swift response. It wasn't until years later had Abby actually realised what she'd meant.

If you didn't explain something yourself, it might as well have never happened.

Abby found herself wondering what would happen if she called Maggie up, now. Would she be Maggie, or would she be Mom? She imagined herself picking up the phone, punching the numbers, waiting for the dial tone and then blurting out, "Mom? Hi. I was abducted."

Oh wow. She'd said it. Not out loud, but she'd said the word in her head, and it suddenly became real. She'd been abducted. That was that. As factual and as objective as you could get it. Wow. A crazy, surreal feeling suddenly made her feel like she was floating, only floating in darkness, and she heard herself blurt the words into the air.

"Susan? It was abduction."

No, that wasn't it… there was no _her_ in the picture. It sounded like she'd just diagnosed a patient with a terrible disease… but no, this time, it was _her_ who had the disease.

"_I _was. Abducted."

There. She'd said it. How was that for bravery and trust? But Susan wasn't saying anything. Had she heard? Did she have to shout it to her, for goodness sake?

Abby breathed rapidly, fighting the urge to scream just to break the silence. She didn't know wether Susan heard or not, wether Susan saw her, what Susan was thinking, what the hell was going to happen from here… her head was swimming, her heart was beating so fast she felt like Picasso had drawn up her EKG, her lungs were sucking in the air as quick as they could get it, but she'd said it. The images she'd held off until now were tearing through her consciousness, and It was real, so terribly, dreadfully real.

Was this what it felt like to fall?

She couldn't tell who was screaming more… her irrationality, logicality, or just plain, defenceless, _her_. The real, unadulterated Abby that didn't go into battle with herself, firearms blazing, defences holding out… the Abby that couldn't do anything to save herself, or to forget. The Abby she'd been in the moments after CJ had died. That was why she couldn't forget.

"_Abby!_" Susan suddenly breathed in barely more than a whisper. She didn't try to hide her shock.

_Why should she?_ Abby thought recklessly. _It's shocking, oh yes, it is._

Abby felt her mind snapping back, before she had a chance to stop it. She'd seen patients do it before. When she'd been on her Psyche Ward rotation, she'd dubbed it "Dark Hour"… it was when they relived a horrible experience, and there was no use in medicating them unless they lashed out in self or other forms of harm. It was painful to watch, torture to listen, but feeling it… it compared to nothing else. She'd relived some dark moments, but nothing so vivid. She'd never imagined anything like it.

Abby had never intended to torture Susan, but she'd have to take a few liberties instantly or she was going to explode.  
_  
A flash of headlights, a black car screeching into the Ambulance bay._

Without warning, Abby suddenly heard herself speak.

"They came out of nowhere, asking if I was a Doctor. I told them I was, asked them what the problem was, but it wasn't… it wasn't… what I thought."

_Rough hands, pulling and pushing her into the darkness, the feel of cold, hard leather against her skin. Her own voice shouting crazy strings of words, screeching for someone to come, anyone…_

"I couldn't stop them. They forced me, wouldn't let me go."

_The car, lurching them all forward, music blaring and tires screaming in resistance… or was it her?_

"I… I tried to get out. I wasn't stupid, but… but… yes, yes, I was stupid. I was so stupid. I should have known, I mean, all those stupid safety talks that tell you never to get in one of those stupid cars, 'cause you never know what…"  
_   
_Abby felt her stomach lurch, and the pitch of her voice ramble dangerously up and down, all over the shop.__

"…what's going to happen." She finished.

_A cold, hard barrel pressed against her temple._

Abby controlled her voice as best she could. It came out strange… hesitant, stiltled.

"They. Had. A. Gun."

Did Susan gasp, or was that her imagination?

_Blood, everywhere. Her nice, clean white coat, soaked crimson red. It wasn't fair._

"They wanted me to fix him. This guy, in the back of the car, he was bleeding all over the place, the bullet went straight through and right out the other side."

_"We need to get him to a hospital. He's gonna die!"_

"We needed to get him to a hospital. He was gonna die. He was…"

Abby shivered violently. The darkness was pressing closer. It was suffocating.

_His screams filled the night, the hard, metallic needle etching a line in her fingers as she forced it to do its work._

"I sewed him up, with a needle and thread. I mean, a needle and thread! It was so stupid…"

_"This is stupid, this is so stupid…"_

"…just so stupid."

A pathetic sob escaped Abby's lips. She couldn't keep going… she couldn't relive what was coming next. Just couldn't…

"What else, Abby?" Susan spoke softly. 

Stifling the urge to cry harder, Abby hastily wiped her eyes on the shoulder of her gown.

_Standing in the woods, trees everywhere, a torch light flashing in her eyes…and trying desperately to undo her scrubs. The ultimate in humiliation, their dark eyes watching her, mercilessly._

"They took me out into the woods, they… they…"

"They what?" Susan spoke in barely more than a whisper.

"They didn't touch me. I thought maybe they would… they didn't."

Abby wiped the stupid tears away.

_Pain shot through her arms, tearing through her muscles like nothing she'd ever known. Was this what it was like to die? She had no breath left in her body… still, she counted, endlessly…_

"He went down. I started compressions…"

_1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5…_

"It went on, and on and on, until…"

_He was dead. She would never forget. He was dead, dead, dead… tears on her face, sobs wracking her body, he was dead. The fire burning somewhere in the distance, the cold, black steel, a dark voice haunting her somewhere… she was dead, too…_

Abby blurted fitfully.

"I lost him, and it was my fault… it was all my fault."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes, it was my fault…"

Abby choked on a sob and rubbed at her eyes furiously. Susan whispered gently, through the darkness,

"What else, Abby?"

_The tops of buildings fading into the night, speeding by through the car window. Upside down, just like her entire world… she was upside down. And cold, so cold…_

"We kept on driving. Just driving and driving."

_"Get out. This is it."_

"And then…"

_Light emanating from the sign above the doors, and the car driving into the night, gone… but not gone from her mind. She was home… or was she?_

"…we were here."

Abby snivelled, gazing into the darkness.

There, she'd lived it… it had lived in her mind, so terrifyingly real as when it had happened… she was in dark hour. And it was cold.

She searching the darkness for Susan, but couldn't see a thing… not even that bit of white coat. And neither of them spoke. _I must have scared her away,_ thought Abby. _This is what it feels like to fall… It feels dark, and lonely._

Abby unexpectedly heard the bed creak, and felt the mattress sag down a little further in the middle. A shoulder pressed against hers, then an arm slipped quietly around them.

"You're here, and you're safe." Susan, suddenly beside her, whispered as if it were a known fact.

Abby wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded her head, resting it quietly against Susan's shoulder.

It was dark, but not as lonely as she'd thought.


	5. Lost in a Lost World

**Author's greetings, and sincere apologies:** Greetings, one and all. Firstly, I would like to say that I am very sorry for the lack of updates. The last two weeks have been busy beyond all believability… henceforth, I wasn't able to get this done until now.  
Secondly, I want to thank you all for reviewing. A review always makes my day! I love to hear from you. **Trapped in a Matchbox**, thankyou! I love to think that writing can work at emotions like that. **anonymous01**, thanks for being understanding about the updates :), **soaringmonkeymuffins**, great name, and no – this is not going to be a Carter/Abby story (I refuse to use words such as 'carby' or 'luby') and I'm sorry if anyone was expecting it to be that way… I am writing with what the episodes are giving me. That means that at the moment, Carter is interested in Wendall, and in the not too distant future Abby will be hooking up with Jake. **Lady Piper1**, I'm glad you thought the flashbacks felt real.

An Extra: If anyone can tell me where I plucked the title for this chapter from, I will be amazed… and congratulate your taste in music.

**Author's Disclaimer:** I most definitely do not own ER. I'm only borrowing it for awhile. But by George, it's fun to play around with…****

Chapter 5 – Lost in a Lost World

Abby had no idea how long she sat there for.

With Susan's arm fitted snugly around her shoulders, Susan's hand giving her left shoulder a gentle massage every now and then, as if to remind her she was still there – and still not alone – and Susan's calm, composed silence never breaking whenever Abby felt one of those spasms of hot shivering course through her body… she lost all track of time. It could have been ten minutes, ten hours, even ten years… and it wouldn't have mattered. There didn't seem to be any notion of time in this bizarre new world, where she was the patient and Susan the Doctor… where she was dependant upon another. It was a strange, surreal feeling, being dependant on another person, when you had grown up used to playing the dependable part. She was used to responsibility, used to having to be the reliable one. She was used to being the one who was just _there_ for everybody else. Perhaps that was why she'd been a good nurse? Perhaps that was why she'd wanted to be a good Doctor?

Or perhaps that was why she felt as though she was standing ten metres away from her own body, peering down on a forlorn, dishevelled doctor with thin, slouched shoulders, blonde highlights and smudged eyeliner who was in Dark Hour – who had done what she had promised herself she would never do: she had fallen into that big, black pool of emotion. She'd let go of the tree branch… she'd gotten on the rollercoaster. Something was different, though. Something kept bringing her back to herself, just when she thought she'd never find her own body again. It was that arm around her shoulders. It was her link with the world outside.Without meaning to, Abby suddenly shivered again. Warm spasms of some unearthly feeling sped through her muscles, travelling down her spine and right through to the tips of her fingers. Coupled with the pain that was already there, it came borderline to being unbearable – Abby suddenly craved a few aspirin. She could have sworn she had a temperature. Of course, part of her only expected it – the human body wasn't made for such stamina when it came to breathing life into another person's lungs. As a result, her own body was impossibly drained. Just the same, harbouring some vague, cynical hope that her body would obey her, Abby willed the pain to go away. She was tired, and her arms were just plain killing her. It made sense. If her mind wouldn't obey her, how could she expect her body to?

Occasionally, a few silent tears would seep form the corner of her eyes and run down the edge of her face, making little clear trails across her temples and onto Susan's lab coat. She couldn't tell where they came from… wether it was because her arms hurt, or because her body just needed some sort of physical outlet, but she didn't try to stop them. She thought a few times about how Susan's coat would look after this night was through. It would probably have to go out for dry cleaning, knowing all the mess she'd made about crying on it. Abby wondered wether or not she could afford to pay Susan's bill for her. She hadn't finished her shift… would she still get paid? She thought a few times about how she would have to get herself a new coat, a nice clean one with the words 'A. Lockhart, M.D.' stitched neatly in blue across the breast. She thought about it, wondering if they'd give her a second one after what she'd done to the last one. She even thought a few times about where her old one might have ended up. Tossed to the ground in some unknown Chicago side street? Left to rot in a garbage can in who knows where? Abby even imagined herself holding a memorial service for the poor, bloodied coat. _R.I.P, lab coat – you served me well._ Despite herself, she could have chuckled… but for the most part, Abby just let her mind meander freely across time and space, across glimpses and fractions of old memories and across things that had never bothered her until now.

Abby wondered how her mother was. She wondered how Eric was doing, wether or not Maggie was getting a taste of her own medicine, so to speak… it had been too long since she'd got in touch with either of them. She shouldn't have left it alone for so long. What if she… hadn't been around tomorrow to call? What if she'd never seen her crazy, mixed up family again? Would they want to know what had happened to her? Her mind quickly ruled the possibility of telling them… she couldn't let them know. She couldn't let them know about anything. Abby suddenly had a frightening image in her mind, of her mother speed-demoning it down to Chicago to hold her baby's hand… She couldn't handle that, not now, perhaps not ever. Besides – Eric needed her far more. Maybe one day, she'd tell them. Maybe. But first, she had to figure things out for herself.

The gurney suddenly squeaked slightly, and Abby jumped as her train of thought was abruptly derailed. Right now, every little noise seemed to get to her, and she couldn't explain why.

Suddenly, Susan took a deep breath beside her.

_Oh no. Please, no._

"Abby, I'm going to have to call the police, you know."

Abby suddenly lifted her head away from Susan's shoulder, swiftly ending the entire moment. For some reason, the fact that the police would be involved had never entered her mind. Not when she was lying on the seat of that car, waiting for whatever end was to come… not when she was reliving the entire event in her mind, not even when she'd first seen Susan in the ambulance bay. She'd never thought about it.

The blood in her veins suddenly sped about ten times faster than it should have, and the odd, unearthly feeling in her stomach returned… like she was going to boil. Like she was a kettle over the flames, about to explode. There was no way she could talk to the police. There was no way. For one thing, she didn't want the others to know. She didn't want to come to work, and to have them all stare at her like she was a patient brought in for domestic abuse… hell, she wasn't some new showcase! She wasn't going to be stared at like a freak show. She didn't want them to stare at her and _know._ She didn't want any of their well meant advances, well wishes or the unbearable compassion in their eyes… she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her.

For another thing, she'd promised. She'd given her word. Who knew? Perhaps they could come back. Perhaps they could find her. Perhaps Little C could make good on that promise of his. Maybe he would come back and blow her head off.

Abby swallowed and pressed a hand to her neck. Her body was threatening to hurl once more.

"No, Susan… I – I can't."

There was no way. No way in the world. _You see?_ Irrational Abby surfaced, like some sadistic force lying dangerously inside her. _I told you. I told you, but you didn't listen. Why did you tell her? She doesn't understand. How could she possibly understand? Now she's going to make you spill your guts to a bunch of cops. What happened to objective over subjective? No one understands you… no one. You're alone. You'll always be alone. That's the way you are. Always.  
_  
"I'm sorry, Abby," Susan went on, sighing and running a tired hand through her hair, "I don't want to do it as much as you do, but…"

_Sure you do,_ rational Abby sassed smoothly. Thankfully, she managed to bite her tongue before anything remotely similar escaped her lips.

"Susan, I can't." Abby's cracked voice spoke again, as she stared unblinkingly into the darkness. The darkness was good. It was constant. Dark was always dark. And no one could see you.

"I'm sorry, Abby." Susan replied quietly, evenly. "I don't want to call, but you know I have to. What happened tonight was against the law… you know it, Abby."

Abby inhaled a deep breath. She _did_ know it. It was just that evil, paranoiac part of her mind that tried to trick her into thinking that Susan was out to get her… Were she a Doctor and Susan a patient, she knew she would have done exactly the same thing. She knew Susan was honest, and she knew Susan would never use excuses at time like this. Susan was a Doctor, and a damn good one, too. If only she wasn't.

_We're all hypocrites…  
_  
"I know." Abby breathed in a throaty whisper, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the gurney tightly with cold fingers. "I know, I just… not tonight. Please… I can't – not tonight."

She could hear Susan sigh. _She's right, she's right, she'd right… _logical Abby tried to tell her, still fighting a losing battle desperately. Abby clenched her teeth and gripped the edge of the gurney tighter, till her knuckles were white.

"Heeey…" Susan's tone suddenly changed as she murmured, giving Abby's arm a little nudge. "You're going to turn your Bp into a basketball score, and a bad one too, if you don't loosen up a little. Relax… okay? Let me take it."

"No, no…" Abby grumbled flatly, but they both knew there was little or no real resistance in her voice. She was just a tired, cranky, little kid… and she began to relax a little as Susan wandered across to the bench. Both her mind, and her body. Bp was something she knew about. She could handle that. She took them everyday. She was also glad that some things went without saying. This was Susan's way of telling her 'You know I think you're wrong, but we'll play it your way for awhile, ok?'. At least, that was what Abby's mind supplied. That was what Abby hoped.

The lamplight suddenly flickered a few times before blinking brightly on, and Susan was sitting beside her again, a blood pressure cuff in her hands.

"Ok, give me your arm."

"No…" Abby mumbled, resisting only slightly when Susan reached in and grabbed it anyway. Her muscles were too tired to defy, so in a matter of moments Abby sat motionless with the rubber cuff around her upper arm, slowly squeezing her. She was used to the sensation. In med school, they'd tested each other's Bp's over and over again, learning all the nitty gritty bits about how it worked and why it worked and all that jazz… the fact that she could never seem to get over was that a rubber cuff was cutting off the flow in one of your arteries. Weird.

Slowly, the cuff began to deflate, and Abby strained her eyes to see the reading. It was hard, in the darkness. Susan had to swivel them both around and face Abby's arm towards the glow of the lamplight… but eventually, she ripped the velcro away with a piercing tear that made Abby wince, announcing, "Perhaps a little higher than normal. Not too bad, but be careful, Abby, ok?"

"Ok." Abby mumbled wearily, rubbing her upper arm. Her blood was flowing again. Just like that, with a rip of the velcro… weird. When you thought about it, it was overwhelming, the amount of power you had when you were a Doctor. Power over life and death.

Was it any different to holding a gun?

"Abby?" Susan began, as she dropped the cuff to one side and turned to watch her friend with concern.

"Yeah?" Abby cleared her throat, shifting her position slightly.

"I know it wasn't easy for you to tell me what you did."

_Yeah, no bull, _quipped Abby's mind. On the outside, her head nodded once politely.

"And I want you to know… I'm gonna be here, ok? If you need to talk, if you need to cry, If you need to scream…" Susan laughed a little, drawing the smallest of smiles from Abby.

"…but seriously, though. When you need someone…" Susan smiled, letting actions speak for themselves and pointing a nicely manicured finger at herself.

Abby nodded quietly, grasping the depth of the offer that Susan's words hadn't said. She knew what Susan was offering – she knew that Susan was taking a perilous step in offering herself as an emotional punching bag. It was a brave thing to do, considering Abby's past.

Logical Abby applauded. Even Irrational Abby was being slowly won over… _hey, maybe she understands more than we give her credit for. Maybe she doesn't even need to understand. Maybe that's the secret… she just stays there. Maybe you're not so alone after all._

"But there're one more thing."

_Hold it, hold it. No more, please… no more._

"What?"

"Do you need me to tell anyone else? It might be easier that way."

To her credit, Abby thought before answering. Perhaps it was best that way. She didn't want to have to tell anyone herself… she couldn't handle that. She just couldn't. Perhaps it was best that everyone else knew. Best for them to avoid the same danger. Better the Devil you know, than the Devil you don't?

Then again, it was so easy for her to sit here in the darkness, while Susan went about everything for her. She didn't deserve a friend like Susan. She didn't deserve anyone that was so unselfish… how was it that the best people always got stuck with such train wrecks? It wasn't right.__

"Ok."

There was more that Abby wanted to say. There was so much more she wanted to fit into that one 'Ok', more than she thought she could ever put into words. She wanted to blurt out to Susan about how good a friend she was… about how she didn't have to do all the things she'd done. She wanted to burst out loud with how much Susan really meant to her at a time like this, she wanted to thank her for taking her Bp, for being so kind, for knowing exactly what to do during Dark Hour… she wanted to tell her about the guilt she felt over being a crappy friend in return, about how she'd somehow pay the dry cleaning bill, about just how afraid she really, truly was… There was so much more she wanted to say.

But for now, a simple 'ok' would suffice.

"Ok." Susan replied with a friendly smile.

---

"I still say she was attacked. You just never know who's waiting on the streets. I mean… don't you think a Doctor should have, like, certain rights?"

"Rights? I don't recall such a word in existence." Susan Lewis quipped offhandedly as she brushed past the admit desk, with a quick upward glance at the board. It was a special talent of hers… the ability to regenerate a cynical comeback after having entered a conversation midway, without even looking up. Her mother had called it a tribulation… Susan preferred to think of it as a talent.

"I mean, for a safer workplace," Morris replied as he took a large mouthful of donut. He was sitting on top of the admit desk, trying desperately to balance a coffee cup, two charts, and a rather large, be-sprinkled donut. It wasn't working. The coffee kept rising dangerously close to the cheap, paper rim whenever he moved his arm in the slightest, he was getting donut icing all over his fingers and there was already a very suspicious, brown mark smudged across the name of 'Miss Stella Crotchet'. 

Sam glanced up from her computer monitor, cocked a wary eyebrow, and mustered one of her most withering looks: the kind she kept for people whom she was meant to respect, but just couldn't find a reason as to why. Or the kind she kept especially for Morris. Either way, it was about the same.

"Huh. Try being a Nurse for a day. You'll never complain about rights again."

Morris took a sip of his coffee, moaning an "Oh, crap!" as a spattering of brown liquid landed on his shirt collar. He resolved to placing his coffee cup down on top of the computer monitor, and rubbing furiously at the brown stain with a napkin.

"I dunno," he went on between furious dabbing, "But how come Abby walks off a shift at night, stays away for, I dunno, a few hours and then comes back looking like…" he paused and leaned in to make sure that Susan wasn't within hearing distance, "A patient?"

Sam scowled and thrust the coffee cup back into his hands.

"I don't know, but it's none of our business."

"Actually, It sort of _is_. I have an announcement for you all, so to speak," A voice suddenly cut in at Sam's elbow, turning out to belong to a tired looking Susan Lewis. Morris jumped, sprouted a 'geez', and stopped dabbing at his shirt collar. Doctor Lewis always managed to catch him off guard. Darn.

"You talked to Abby?" Sam craned her neck around and frowned.

Morris, having settled upon leaving the charts beside him, the coffee on top of those, and the donut in his free hand, and fixated his gaze upon Susan.

"Yeah," Susan replied flatly, placing a hand on her hip. "Hey, Sam? Do you think you could find Carter and Neela? I think Carter's in the hallway… Tell them to come straight here. We'll get this over and done with while there's a lull."

" 'K". Sam flashed a quick smile, before scooting off. Morris frowned as he spotted an ugly coffee wring encircling the details of a suture, and seized the opportunity to return his coffee cup to the top of the monitor.

"Don't even think about it, Morris!" Sam's voice suddenly barked from somewhere across the floor.

"Crap…" Morris blurted, sitting his half-eaten donut over a napkin on his lap, and retrieving his coffee from the top of the computer screen. "I swear," he mumbled, "All women have eyes in the back of their head."

Susan chuckled. It was perhaps the first time she'd laughed in a couple of hours, and it felt nice, if weird. If Morris wasn't good for much else, at least he could provide some unwitting laughs.

"It happens." She smiled, before turning around to view the state of the chart rack. _Well,_ she thought, _could be worse._

Morris took a bite from his chocolate donut. Something suddenly took a hold of him… wether it was the desire to act like an impish child simply out of spite, or to test wether his statement was true, he quietly went to push the computer mouse aside and set his coffee down on the mouse mat.

"Don't even think about it, Morris," Susan intoned dryly without even turning around.

"Crap," Morris grumbled, retrieving his coffee cup with a scowl.

After all that, it was cold.

"Damn paper coffee cups," he griped to himself. "Couldn't hold heat in a nuclear explosion."

---

"Neela?"

"What?" Neela flitted her gaze guiltily from the papers she'd been studying to see the pretty, blonde Sam standing eye level and searching her face. Neela hadn't meant to appear guilty. Her face, especially her eyes, was often the thing that betrayed her. Patients could see it, other Doctors could see it, and she could see if she looked in the mirror. If some people wore their fear on their sleeves, she wore hers in her features.

She didn't mean to look guilty, but she felt guilty. She felt like she should be clapped in irons and carted downtown for violating the terms of friendship: friends were always there for one another. No matter rain, hail or shine, friends were always there. And she was _here_. Not _there,_ but _here._ Here, being just outside the elevator doors, with lab results in her hands. Here, as opposed to there. She wasn't there in exam two. She wasn't there for Abby. Worst of all, she was giving herself excuses as to why she wasn't there. Bumping into Doctor Carter had been bad enough, but now her mind was telling her just how important lab results were. Her mind said that work came first. _What an awful phrase_, she thought with a silent moan.

"Hello, Neela? You there?" A few dainty fingers waved in front of Neela's eyes, in the effort to bring her down to reality. Neela shook her head and hastily snapped to attention. Was she there? No, she wasn't.

"Uh, no, I'm not. Sorry."

"Hey, it happens." Sam proffered a warm smile, visibly straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of the papers in Neela's hands as she went on. "Listen, Susan wants us all at admit, pronto."

"Oh, is that so?"

Sam nodded, as Neela wordlessly handed her the lab results and the pair turned around to make their way through the hallway.

"Any clues as to what this might be?" Neela continued cautiously, biting nervously at a cuticle. It was a bad habit. She knew she had to stop some day.

"Abby."

One word was all it took. Perhaps Neela had known the answer before Sam had given it. Whatever, she'd asked anyway. She felt stupid. And she hated it.

"Oh, right."

"You been to see her at all?"

Neela felt a warm blush rising to her cheeks.

"No, I – not yet."

_I plead guilty…_she said silently to herself,_ as charged._

"Labs back on Aster James so soon?" Sam remarked, slightly astounded as her eyes scanned the information. "Wow, they must really be getting efficient up there."

"Either that, or it was a really simple test. Look-" Neela removed her cuticle from the clutches of her teeth and pointed, "Positive. First time."

"Man, that's gotta be tough. She's what, how old?"

"Seventeen."

Sam tucked a blonde curl safely behind her ear and quickly handed the labs back to Neela.

"That's hard."

"My thoughts exactly…" Neela mumbled, nail returning to her teeth. Hard for Aster, hard for her. The world was hard, hard, hard – and getting harder.

They were approaching the admit desk fast and already a crowd was gathered, with Susan just visible amongst them, waiting silently in front of the board. So Susan was duty-bound to tell them something. Neela was suddenly stuck with the realisation that this was it – This was where they all found out what had happened. This was where they all learned the reason why Doctor Abby Lockhart was in exam two, at this very moment. And if Susan was obligated to tell the staff, then it must have been something dangerous.

This was where Neela would be told that which she had failed to find out for herself.

Suddenly, she felt like she'd just walked into County General for the first time, asking to see a Doctor because Med Students were supposed to start their rounds today.

---

"Now, some of you may have already heard that Abby was brought into tonight, as a patient."

"Some? That would have to be the understatement of the year," Ray murmured through his teeth, receiving the 'witheringest' of looks from Sam. Now that, he would have called the most withering look of the year. He raised his eyebrows, shooting back an innocent glance that said 'What? Don't look at me, I didn't do nothin'! and leaned heavily against the admit desk. Sam couldn't decide wether he was hiding his apprehension with feigned 'coolness', or wether he just had no clue whatsoever. It was the kinder part of her heart that decided upon the former.

Susan either didn't notice or pretended not to, and folded her arms as she continued speaking. Over and over in her head the Susan Lewis voice of reassurance, or her conscience – she couldn't decide which – kept reminding herself: _This is a co-worker you're talking about. No feelings whatsoever will get in the way of this. You are announcing the misfortunes of a co-worker to… a bunch of other co-workers. Co-workers who just happen to be friends… some of them. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that you cool it, Susan Lewis. You are the Chief of Emergency Medicine. If you don't tell them, then they'll find out when they least expect it care of some by product of a rumour, and that would be bad. Very bad. So cool it. You can do this._

"Well, as Chief of Staff, and as a co-worker to both Abby and yourselves, I am obligated to tell you to be on your guard." Susan paused. That sounded like a load of bull to her ears. She may as well have been some stuffy judge in a high court who could barely see the little people over the podium. They didn't even sound like words she'd ever used before. She wondering if she could go on. She'd delivered the hook and the bait, now she actually had to reel in the entire fish – and she wasn't sure if she was sturdy enough to hold it steady.

Susan glanced across at her attendings… Luka, standing with his arm protectively around Sam's small frame, as if afraid that whatever had happened to Abby might happen to Sam if he ever let her go. Maybe it could… if one Doctor had been forcibly taken from a Chicago ambulance bay, why couldn't a Nurse? Susan's gaze flitted across to Carter, standing silently by himself. Here was a man who had loved both women, for a time. Susan had once told him he was hopeless. Well, it had been true… he was. But she'd also said he'd eventually figure things out… and he had. Now it was his turn to tell her. It was his turn to be the adult. When she looked a little closer, she noticed his eyes said what his silence didn't… they told her to go on. _Tell it like it is,_ he said without moving his lips. So Susan swallowed, dipped her head a little and lowered her voice ever so slightly… and continued. No euphemisms this time, no stuffy words. She had to tell it like it was.

"Tonight, Abby was taken at gunpoint from our ambulance bay." There, she'd said it. Susan could hear the intakes of breath, and could feel the air thicken. It was as if she'd just set off a canister of tear gas… only she couldn't hear anybody cry. She didn't dare think about the waver in her voice, though, or dare look at another person. She couldn't stand to. She knew what their eyes would say without them having to speak any words. Something akin to 'Oh my God', or any other string of profanities… mostly, she knew they'd all be distressed, and she'd already dealt with one distressed person that night. One was enough. She knew they'd be distressed, because she was too. It was one of the most heart rending, disturbing things in the world to visualize pretty, volatile, sarcastic, physically and emotionally fragile Abby trapped in the backseat of a car with the cold barrel of a gun resting against her head. It was something you saw in movies, not in real life. It was something that happened to people across the other side of the world, not to people you knew. It was something Susan wouldn't have wished upon her worst enemy, let alone one of her best friends.

"She was abducted for a time, forced to treat a gunshot victim, and then returned to the ER. Physically, unharmed. Emotionally… time will tell."

Susan never would have believed that a place could be so quiet as to be able to hear a pin drop. A lot of those old sayings she didn't hold with much legitimacy, until they actually happened – then she often came to think that perhaps those old wives knew what they were talking about. Susan could have sworn that if someone had dropped a pin just then, she would have heard it, loud and clear. Even Ray and Morris were deathly silent.

"The reasons I've had to say this are as follows. Firstly, it's best that you all understand the situation now, as opposed to discovering it in your own time. I'd rather have you know than try any snooping. Secondly, I want you all to remember that no one is safe. From now on, no one, I repeat, _no one,_ is to wait on the Paramedics in an empty ambulance bay."

"No one?" Pratt suddenly questioned seriously from somewhere near the chart rack. This time, Susan looked straight at him.

"No one. Not even you." Pratt nodded in compliance. Susan was very aware of the oddness of the situation… this was the first all shift she'd seen of Pratt being calm and compliant. Even he was affected.

"Now I have to ask you all," Susan continued, her voice perhaps taking on a teacher's tone, "not to go and see her. If you have to go into exam two, please keep it strictly business. We'll be keeping her till morning for observations, and I have to ask you all to respect my order. You can go back to your patients, now."

Nobody moved, and Susan hesitated. She'd told it like it was. That was that. Still, no one moved. It suddenly struck Susan that she'd finished on a rather harsh note. So, as a quick afterthought, she offered, "Thankyou all for coming. I'm sorry I didn't have better news."

It wasn't much, but it was true, and it was all she had to offer right now. She honestly _was_ sorry she didn't have better news for them. She was sorry for Abby, and for all the things she'd seen in one night. She was even feeling sorry for herself, sorry for the fact that she'd had to speak out. Sorry for the fact that she wasn't even a hundred percent sure she was handling this right.

Luka reluctantly released Sam from his protective grip, but not before applying a quick kiss to her blonde curls. Carter rubbed the back of his neck, and slowly swung around to leave. Ray tried to appear cool and calm, but accidentally collided with the edge of the admit desk as he disappeared. _Oooh, that's gotta hurt,_ Susan winced as she watched Ray curse silently and rub his bruised hip. Soon Pratt was nowhere to be found, and even Morris threw his coffee in the trash with a distasteful expression and snuck away with the remaining half of his donut. Eventually, there was only Neela, her dark eyes flitting nervously about and the cuticle of her index finger suffering an untimely death between her teeth.

"Neela?" Susan began, moving in on the nervous Intern.

"Do you need me to stick around an extra hour or so after my shift?" Neela suddenly blurted out. "I finish at five, but if you want me to stay, I can take Abby home."

The next thing Susan did, she didn't even think about. Perhaps it was maternal instinct, or perhaps it was just Susan instinct. She didn't even know Neela very well, apart from a few exchanges in the lounge or a few words of instruction during a trauma. And after the way she'd let her have it earlier on… well, what could she do? Her patient satisfaction scores had sucked. For some reason, though, when she looked down she didn't see a brainiac British Doctor with sucky patient satisfaction scores and a penchant for chewing her nails… she saw a frightened kid, who was doing the only thing she could manage right now to care for a friend. So, without thinking, Susan smiled and placed a hand on Neela's upper arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"That would be great."

"Ok. Thanks." Neela smiled timidly, shaking a few black curls away from her face.

Susan smiled and turned to head for the lounge. Reality was slowly leaking back in, and she knew it. She must have spent about an hour in that room with Abby, but she'd lost track of time. It had bordered on the unbearable, listening to her relive everything. Abby may not have known, but for that one, critical hour, exam two had held no dry eyes – none.

Susan groaned, leaning an arm against the door to the lounge and pushing with all her body weight. It was absolutely unbelievable, that after all this, she still had paperwork to finish. The world waited for no one.

Still, at least she wasn't hiding out anymore. Or being a crab. That was a good thing. Perhaps there was one friend that she would definitely keep.


	6. Missing

**Author's establishment of her continued existence:** Hello, I'm terribly sorry for the lack of updates. It's really due to a factor of schoolwork, the business of life, and, well, _schoolwork._ I am currently being held prisoner by a force known as the Australian Education System, and you see, sometimes… It gets more than a little hectic. I will, however, be free in around about… glances at calendar five months. _Groan._

Anyway, here is the next chapter. I still have quite a bit planned, so thankyou, oh ye faithful, for your reviews. They bring light into my cell… uh, classroom.

**Author's disclaimer:** No, I still don't own it.

**Chapter 6 – Missing**

Abby breathed a deep sigh of relief as the elevator doors closed in front of her.

It wasn't often you found the elevator completely unoccupied in a place like this. It wasn't often that you found even a square inch in the ER that you could call your own for a few moments before someone else would insist on tearing you away from it, joining you, or kicking you off – so Abby considered just how lucky she was. She'd been lucky to get this far away from exam two without being spotted. She was lucky she knew her way around this place like the back of her hand, it made a silent and stealthy escape from the emergency floor a lot more probable. Not that she was trying to escape the hospital… just the floor of the ER. That was all, nothing big or exciting. And she was lucky that anybody who might have recognised her without a double take was presently at an impromptu staff meeting with Susan.

She was lucky. But was she crazy?

When Susan had left, all had been silent. There had been no Mrs Arbett in the next bed making haphazard conversation, no nurses scooting in the check on an IV line, no nothing… inside the room, that was. Abby had suddenly discovered, with nothing to do but sit alone, twiddle her thumbs and try to keep her mind off herself, that the exam rooms weren't very well soundproofed. Funny, she'd never noticed before. It was the outside that had suddenly become overpowering – the continual background noise of the emergency room that had only become more grating and more jarring to her nerves, while she still couldn't seem to explain why such mundane noises were so aggravating. Aggravating, yes – almost unbearable. She had to go somewhere quieter. Not somewhere deathly silent – just quieter. And she had to go somewhere that wasn't so close to the people she knew. So close, they were only separated by a wall, so close she could practically hear their individual tones, imagine their individual profiles through the thin slats of the blinds, going about their jobs, going about their lives. And she knew exactly what Susan was doing. Susan was telling them all. She was telling them everything.

Not that she cared. Of course she didn't. She didn't mind at all. Not one little bit.

There were two reasons Abby had decided she absolutely had to make her temporary escape: firstly, the noise was driving her mad. The constant droning of the patients, the endless streams of voices she was sure she knew. It couldn't have been her imagination that she'd heard Ray coaxing a favour from Sam, Luka's deep voice mumbling a string of instructions to a gaggle of med students, or Neela's sharp, clean accent rattling off medical terms as if she'd been using them since the age of six… and it was driving her mad. Secondly, she was driving _herself_ mad. She could swear that her mind was going to explode at any moment. She'd never imagined it was humanly possible to contain so many questions and so many fears in one mind – she had to get away from herself, before the combination of the droning noise and her own introspective silence drove her up the wall. If anything, she just had to do _something_ to keep her mind preoccupied for a moment or two. Besides, if she couldn't sleep, why the hell shouldn't she go wandering?

Abby couldn't help but wonder what would happen as soon as Susan released the fateful words, spreading the news that Doctor Abby Lockhart of the ER had been abducted. Strangely, she'd somehow imagined there would have been a large explosion of some sort, taking out at least a few rooms. It had somehow come to be that in her thoughts, she had imagined that words with such potency should be accompanied by a large, physical outpouring of some sort. Maybe it had been a simple case of imagining that the world sometimes stood still for you – or the fact that any sort of a reaction at all was better than waiting endlessly in silence… then, yet again, it seemed that time stood still for no man. Or woman.

Would there would be an uproar? Would there be people coming from offices floors away to stand with their fingers and noses pressed upon the glass, bearing gifts in sympathy, walking in uncomfortably to stand by her bedside and offer a few hasty words of well-wishing, before scooting away and breathing a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them, knowing that they had done their part? Was that how it would be?

Some part of her, albeit a disgruntled and guilty part of her, liked having the idea that somebody was thinking about you. She liked having had that little bit of sympathy from Susan. After all, she was only human – to know that someone would stand by you, let you cry and choke all over their clean white coat and even take the task of releasing to news to the public when you knew you never possibly could… it was nice. Yet a large part of her wished that the entire damn thing would just blow away. What she wouldn't have given to be able to wake up the next morning and come to work like an ordinary day, wasn't worth giving. Abby didn't mind lending her own life, she was used to it. But having someone else lend you theirs, was a staggering proposition. Abby didn't know who that woman had been, with the blonde highlights, the smudged eyeliner and the thin shoulders protruding from a hospital gown, but that woman had been caught in a weak moment.

Abby could only wonder. Was she crazy? Here she was, dressed half as a patient, standing awkwardly by herself in a hospital elevator while she waited for it to take her to goodness knows where. Well, she had ruled out two possibilities, at least – the roof, and the morgue. Some places were just _too_ quiet.

It had been all too easy for her to hop out of bed, and to slip through the two adjoining traumas, which had been conveniently empty. It was a graveyard there, alright… a quiet time for emergencies. She wasn't sure how much longer it would last, until a fresh batch of patients would be wheeled in, but she'd been lucky for the moment. Only the rest of the hospital seemed to be buzzing with sound. Abby could have sworn that in the curtain area outside her room, there had been at least three puking kids whose stomachs never seemed to relent. And even though she'd never been a sympathy hurler, the sounds had been so nauseating she'd only just managed to keep herself from having a reason to use that silver medical dish… yet another reason to escape.

It had been easy to slip into an empty storage room, and to thank her lucky stars or whoever was there that there was at least something useful about everybody besides her being in the same place all at once. It was easier to build confidence about this brave new venture as she successfully found and slipped on a pair of clean scrubs beneath her gown. It had been oh so tempting to get rid of the gown completely, but she'd gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep it. She was still a patient, after all. Actually, she figured she was more half patient half Doctor, which gave her half the right to be sneaking around areas that were restricted to hospital personnel. So she was only being half bad.

The tricky part had been trying to slip through the elevator doors. It was the most dangerous element of the entire escapade… venturing out into open ground, without the safety of any storage closets or adjoining rooms. She felt like she was on an army raid of sorts, and as she didn't have all day to stand around pressing buttons and waiting for it to arrive, she'd hidden in storage and waited for someone to walk out.

Five minutes was all it had taken. The elevator doors had opened, yielding a tired, harried nurse hefting an impossibly large amount of bodily fluids beneath one arm. Shielding her face with her hand, Abby had prayed no one would recognise her, emerged from her hiding place and slipped quietly through the elevator doors before they'd shut. Success. She'd made it. She had successfully escaped the ER. And now, she was waiting. Waiting to go where, she didn't know, but waiting nonetheless.

It was a satisfying feeling in some ways, knowing something that no one else knew. It filled her with a strange sense of inner pride, that she had really disappeared without anyone's knowing. It meant that she was invisible, that she was free to come and go as she pleased, and that she really was alone – alone and free to wander, free to walk around the outskirts of life and just watch for awhile. Perhaps she could take her mind of her own troubles for a moment, if anything. But like it or not, that was one of the times when she was at her most comfortable. When she was alone. She knew herself better, then. Better then when another person was there to confuse her.

Didn't she?

The elevator suddenly slowed to a stop, and Abby felt the characteristic feeling of her stomach dropping right through the floor and then leaping back again. She looked across for the control panel, and found the light was only on the second floor button. Damn. She'd barely gotten anywhere and already, she'd stopped. Maybe her luck was starting to fail. Yes, there had always been the possibility that someone else would have to get into the elevator, but before she'd even gotten at least a few levels? Come on! Abby swallowed hard as the steel doors slid open, and putting on a brave face, she braced herself.

She prayed that it wasn't someone she knew.

Wether it was that God heard her, or her luck continued to hold, but when the elevator doors slid open it was only a tired looking med student who hopped in without so much as a glance her way. Abby could tell he was a student without a second take. The dark bags beneath his eyes, the suspicious fluid staining his smart, white business shirt and the thick notepad between his fingers all said 'I came completely unprepared, and I am now finding out what a furnace this place is. Give me a few more months, and either my nerves will be taking it a lot better, or I'll have pulled out completely. Either way, right now, I think I'm pretty much screwed.'

All the same, she didn't know wether he was going up or down, and decided that a backwards step would not suit her at all, so her stop would now be the second floor. Hey, at least it wasn't the ER. With a quick, forced smile, Abby bowed her head and padded out into the empty hallway. Padded, because all she wore on her feet were socks - She'd discovered them underneath the gurney as she'd been plotting her escape, but could only find one of her shoes. Even in her dishevelled, half-dressed, half-patient state, she'd decided that no shoes were better than one.

So Abby ambled awkwardly down an empty corridor, trying to pretend that she knew exactly where she was going, and knowing the only constant thing in her world to be the pad-padding of her black, ankle high socks. Her world seemed to be a little broken. Maybe her life had a stress fracture? It didn't feel like a clean break – their were definitely bits and pieces snapped here and there and little chunks floating about, lost in time and space. Abby stopped padding as she happened upon a floor directory, pinned neatly up to the wall beside a sign telling her there was to be no smoking in the corridors. Hmmm. Perhaps she could book herself in for an X-ray? A Cat Scan? No, definitely not. She knew what they'd say.

They'd say she was perfectly healthy.

Abby sniffed and continued padding morosely down the corridor, pausing now and then to glance through the doorways that had been left open. She had no idea what she was hoping to find, but for some reason, she continued to search anyway.

On a positive note, Abby thought, at least her feet weren't cold anymore. That was one thing.

---

"Kidnapped? Man, I can't believe it." Morris said, half to the group of residents gathered around the storage closet, and half to his last remaining mouthful of donut. The gathering of residents wasn't a planned one. They all stood awkwardly around storage, occasionally meeting one another's eyes with a quick, furtive glance or trying to look as though they were doing something remotely useful, something that they at least should have been paid for. It had just so happened that they'd all seemed to gravitate towards the one place, and nobody could explain why. Perhaps to bond together in a time of need – unlikely, considering the fact that the farthest each would have wished to 'bond' with the next was to pass off a horrible bumper of a case, or to sign out. And that didn't count for much quality time at all. Perhaps it could have been to discuss the most recent and shocking announcement – unlikely, again, due to the fact that the only discussing that seemed to have taken place so far was Morris' one sided conversation with his donut, and an occasional disapproving glance from Pratt, who was wondering more than ever that if someone like Morris could make it through to his residency, what kind of hole was the world falling into? Or perhaps it was just human instinct to group together in the wake of a disaster, when not one person seemed to know what else to do or say, especially towards the afflicted person or persons in question. Neela decided it was most likely the latter, as she tried to busy herself by arranging a row of bottles in order of their size while at the same time pretending not to notice the awkward silence. It was the latter in her case, anyhow.

"I mean, I _really_ can't believe it." Morris said again, apparently taking no notice of the stony hush around him as he licked his fingers and wiped them on a paper towel. Ray, Neela, and even Pratt watched him in slight disgust, before Ray finally cleared his throat and raised an ominous eyebrow.

"Well, it is possible."

"Possible, yes, but I still can't believe it."

"Well believe it, man, 'cause it happened." Pratt interjected dryly, without glancing up from his chart for even a moment.

"But seriously, how often do we get kidnapping victims? I mean, when was the last time you treated one?"

Pratt paused momentarily, halting his perusal of a finished exam and honestly giving a little thought to the question. It was true, he couldn't remember when he'd last treated a kidnapping victim, but then again – they were a hospital. What was to be expected?

"I don't know," Pratt eventually relented, getting the edge in his tone that surfaced whenever he was uncomfortable, "But it's usually the cops who handle that unless they've been a victim of assault."

"So you think she might have been assaulted, too? I mean, if we had the chance-"

"No, but I don't think that we should start classing Abby as a patient-"

"But if we could just get another look, we could all come to a conc-"

"No!" Pratt cut in, frustration building. For the sake of all that was good… how had Morris lived through med school? "You heard Doctor Lewis."

Morris stared blankly.

"And you always follow orders?"

Pratt glowered. Sometimes, he swore, he felt like punching the man's lights out.

"No." Pratt had to say, in all honesty, as he gripped his pen tightly between his fingers and tried to retain the calm, controlled Doctor image. It was hard. "But this time, I do."

"How come we're all 'gathered here', then, huh? Somehow, I don't think it's to pick flowers." Morris cackled appreciatively at his own joke, and panned an arm across the small group – Ray sifting through a truckload of plastic gloves and Neela hesitating with a small, plastic bottle between her thumb and forefinger. Neither said a word. "Did Doctor Lewis honestly say anything about not talking about it?" Morris queried, voice implying perhaps 'wake up and smell the coffee, man!' "I mean, come on!" he spread his arms wide for emphasis, "Doctor Lockhart gets kidnapped. And you're telling me we shouldn't talk about it?"

Pratt shifted uncomfortably in his shoes, never breaking his gaze. Ray, appeared to be very interested all of a sudden in finding a pair of gloves just the right size, murmuring something about how they never made them for musicians, and Neela started arranging the bottles in order of label colour.

"Like I said, are you saying we shouldn't talk about it?"

Pratt exhaled noisily, folding his arms across his chest. He was cornered. He was floored. By the resident clown, of all people. Why?

"He's saying you shouldn't talk about a Doctor like that. Like she's some kind of medical oddity!" Neela suddenly burst from the storage room, her dark eyes flashing as a rapid hand movement inadvertently sent a bottle with a purple label smashing to the floor. Pratt, a little shocked that Neela had cut him off in the middle of a row with Morris, yet still thinking clearly enough to know that give or take a few words, that was something he damn well wished he'd said sooner… squared his gaze with Morris, and nodded his head.

"She's a Doctor of this hospital, she deserves her privacy, and our respect. She was kidnapped with a bloody gun. For God's sake, leave her alone!" Neela ranted, teeth gritting dangerously.

"Hey…" Morris suddenly twittered with a nervous laugh, eyeing Neela's balled fist like he expected it to connect with his face at any moment. "It's not like I ever said anything _bad…_"

Neela's eyes widened as she stared unblinkingly at Morris for a full five seconds. Then, without any warning whatsoever, she slammed the cabinet doors shut, seized a bottle from the counter and stormed past Morris out into the hallway. Morris followed her with his eyes, as the stomping of her shoes seemed to resound through the hallway.

When he remembered where he was, two raised eyebrows from Ray and a somewhat smugly satisfied look from Pratt prompted Morris to shrug, wonder out loud, "Was it something I said?", pause and briefly consider the effect his presence may have if he left in the same direction… and choose out of fear for his life to scuttle quickly the opposite way.

Watching the retreating white coat with a slightly amused expression on his face, Ray pocketed a few pairs of gloves smiled. "Go Neela."

Pratt shrugged, smiling quietly as he turned back the to details of his chart. He didn't mind so much being upstaged by a woman – not if it was Neela. Had he possessed the same clean, British, articulate sense, perhaps he would have said something similar a long time before.

Then again, he mused, some things seemed to go without saying.

---

Luka couldn't concentrate.

It wasn't that he was reading anything interesting. Quite the opposite… given any other time, a distraction of any sort would have been most welcome. The article he'd printed off not so long ago frowned up from his desk, teasing him, taunting him, the stark whiteness of the paper glaring ominously and giving him a splitting headache. 'Come on, read me!' It said. 'Drain me of my wealth of knowledge, take your mind off all your troubles. Off _other people's _troubles. _Reeead me…_'

The tall Croatian leaned forward, pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and heaved a sigh. He supposed he should been fascinated, wrapt, or at the least - mildly interested. But somehow even he, Luka Kovac, could not bring himself to enjoy the fine art of wart treatment. It wasn't such an embarrassment, as he very well knew. He could wager that any other Doctor would have been bored. Any other Doctor, were they less kind than himself, would probably have ordered their student to summarise the content of the article and report back in point form, but he couldn't bring himself to do that, either. However, it was not his lack of fascination that worried him – something quite the opposite. His mind seemed to have a sudden penchant for straying into the past. Backwards into the not so recent past, to be precise. Backwards to barely a few hours into the past, to be very specific – to be exact, to visions of a fragile, shivering, near hysterical bundle he'd carried through the doors and straight across the emergency room floor.

Kidnapping? Who could have imagined! The thought hadn't even entered his mind as a possibility. And yet, a reality it now was – a terrifyingly real reality, at that. It was bad enough that his own small world had continued to move forward while in his mind, Abby's had ceased revolving. It was strange, the way that out of sight, meant out of mind… sure, he had wondered concerning her whereabouts. He had been a little worried as to why she would walk away and not return. He'd been concerned when they hadn't heard hide nor hair of her for hours, but he'd never imagined she'd been living through hell. He'd never stopped to think that her world had been moving forward, too. Far from blowing off smo- _steam,_ somewhere, while he had been safe and sound she'd been looking down the barrel of a gun.

Luka shook his head a little as a shiver spiralled down his spine, and he trained his dark eyes intensely upon the first paragraph.

'Intralesional immunotherapy is a highly effective and safe method for treating any patient with a wart…'

Where exactly had he been when he'd head Susan's call from the ambulance bay? Ah, that's it, it had been an emergency of sorts. It was a lucky thing there'd been that wastepaper basket nearby, and exceptionally lucky it hadn't been the wire kind with all the holes, or the entire contents of that kid's stomach would have ended up all over curtain four. A lucky thing indeed. But there'd been a call for help, in a voice that he knew and recognised, so of course he'd handed the basket to the bewildered parent and answered the call immediately. And after failing to hand in his QA report on time, he felt he should do everything in his power to appease Susan.

He'd expected a difficult trauma. Perhaps a car crash or gunshot victim, something where he could be of use, instead of holding children's heads over buckets while they emptied last night's meal all at once. He'd expected something different, above all else. His expectation had proved correct.

Luka was sure it had been ten full second before his mind had managed to tell him that the sight he saw was real. Abby, sobbing and choking, cradled in Susan's arms, being rocked back and forth like a baby, with blood all down her front and Susan's voice, telling him to do something, anything.

What else could he do but shift into emergency mode? It was the way he'd been trained to act. But when he'd jumped in and lifted Abby straight from Susan's arms, he'd been surprised at how awkward she'd been to carry. He'd almost buckled as her hands had swung uselessly in the air and her head had hung limply over her chest, and she'd cried… such awful, draining, choking sobs, that he'd wished he had his hands free to cover his ears. Were it not for Susan's steady arm on his back, he could have lost his balance altogether and sent that precious bundle crashing to the concrete.

Then, regaining himself and barging through the doors, he'd been completely taken aback by Abby's lack of fight. The Abby that he knew, the one he'd worked alongside for so many years, would have demanded to be placed on her own two feet. She would perhaps have pummelled him in the chest, or if he'd continued to carry her, have leapt out of his arms without another question asked… but then, when she'd shrunken close and quivered uncontrollably, no coherence whatsoever in her mumbled gasps, the only thing that he could think to do in his astonished state was to keep moving forward. In any other circumstance, he may not have blown Neela away so hastily. In any other situation, he may have welcomed her help. But all he could do was to move forward, just as they had done while they'd been apart… now that he and Abby were face to face again, he would keep on moving forward.

Or, more specifically, now that she was shaking in his arms.

Luka sighed, rubbing his eyes. His desk lamp was burning brightly. Too brightly. Extending the nimble finger of a Doctor, Luka reached for the switch and decidedly flicked it off, hoping that the whiteness of the article might not glare so intensely at him. In the lessened light, the Doctor tried to bring his eyes into focus upon the text.

"Inter- Intra- Intralees-"

It was no use. Luka sighed, and flicked the lamp switch back on. He couldn't even read the first word, for goodness sake.

As soon as he'd set Abby down on top of a gurney, Luka's first impulse had been to speak to her.

"Abby? Abby? It's Luka –Susan and I are here now. You're at county, and it's almost midnight. Abby? Can you hear me? Can you tell us what happened to you?"

He spoke and he'd watched her – he'd watched her closely, the rise and fall of her chest that was too fast, the mess of blonde-brown hair splayed across the pillow, the bend of her knees still in the angle he'd set her down at, and the deep crimson of the stains on her scrubs. And he'd looked at her eyes… and realised that they weren't looking back at him, they were looking past him, watching for a person he couldn't even see. And then she'd practically screamed. "Please, no!" And he, Luka Kovac, in spite of all the things he'd known and understood… had been afraid. For a moment, her eyes had been wide. They'd been wide, deep, and full of fear – and then they'd flickered momentarily, her body had sagged, and she'd been fast asleep. Just like that.

Luka would have feared seriously for her health at that moment, had he not seen the steady rise and fall of her chest, or heard Susan's reassuring words as she placed her stethoscope back around her neck and exclaimed, "She's just sleeping."

There wasn't much more he could have done… yet still, he'd stood there, watching both women uncertainly. Susan, now that she was back on her own two feet as a Doctor with a patient, flitted about quickly and barked instructions.

"Can you get me a clean gown? We've got to get her out of these. I can't see any wounds…"

"Do you think it's her blood?" Luka had asked as he'd handed over a fresh, neatly folded gown.

"No, I can't see any flesh wounds, but she's covered in the stuff. Can you get me a blanket? Or two?"

Luka had reached into a side drawer, producing at least three plain, woolen blankets.

"Should we wake her up?"

Susan had paused momentarily, with one hand on her hip and the other pressed against her forehead. Luka had known the answer even before she'd even had to say it.

"No. Ok, you can leave now."

"What?"

"You can leave, Luka."

Luka had stood there for a full five seconds, gaping wide eyed as he'd calculated what he'd just been told. Had he been ordered to leave?

"Please go, Luka."

Luka listened to the slight tremor in Susan's voice, and as she'd started unfolding the gown he had suddenly understood why his presence was no longer needed.

Without another word, he'd turned around to leave. And that was that. Abby had been found in their ambulance bay covered with blood that didn't seem to belong to her, and he had no idea why. No one did. The only question that had been in his mind as he'd stepped through the doorway must have been the same question he saw written upon the faces of the crowd gathered at the admit desk. What had been done to her?

And now, they knew the answer. The Doctor shook his head suddenly, and furrowed his brow. He tried to bring the small, black print into focus once more.

'Intralesional immunotherapy is a highly effective and safe method for treating any patient with a wart…'

It was no use. He'd read the same paragraph five times already.

With a heavy sigh, Luka leaned back into his chair, gazing aimlessly at the ceiling.

When it came to friends, Luka knew he was one for jumping to conclusions. It was not like rape or assault had never been a possibility, quite the opposite. They were terrifyingly real possibilities. But where he'd come from, when you jumped to the wrong conclusions, they'd often been right. Or even worse than you could ever have imagined.

Luka couldn't make up his mind about which was worse: rape, assault or kidnapping. Each was against free will, each was as terrible a crime to humanity as the other, each committer was as deserving to die. But what had broken his heart, more than finding out the terrible deeds done to a friend, was the fact that all he'd been able to do was carry her to safety. Yet again, he was powerless against the forces of the world.

Luka understood the power of memories, all too well. On the worst of days, he sometimes wished he could erase his own. In the same manner, he wished he knew a way of erasing Abby's… so she'd never have any memory of the gun, or any of it. He knew her. Despite the bravado she often liked to play at, he knew her history – her tendencies, the fagility of her emotions. She was in for a long haul. And he wished he could prescribe a medicine, a treatment, something to make it easier.

And Sam, his beautiful Sam. What might happen to her? What would happen if she decided to go against instruction, as she was sometimes wont to do, and wait by herself in an empty ambulance bay? He couldn't bear to imagine.

At that very moment, as if the physical world was trying to match its actions against his mind, or if it was trying to break his heart further, Luka suddenly spied Sam approaching from the corner of his eyes. Her small form was striding forward, moving, like always, at such a fast pace that he wondered how it was physically possible for anybody but a nurse… Casually, Luka tried to put his head back down and appear as though he was doing something constructive. He focused his eyes on that infernal first paragraph once more. 'Intralesional immunotherapy-'

"Hey."

Luka looked up, not in the least surprised to see Sam standing with a hand casually rested atop his cluttered desk.

"Hey," he repeated, feeling a little awkward at using such slang with his accent. Even though he'd tried many times to quote sayings, to use expressions and americanisms, they often seemed to backfire. Luka was glad, however, when he saw Sam's warm smile. He would have done almost anything to make her smile, he hated to see worry lines streaking her forehead, but what made him even more happy was the fact that she knew just how to make him smile, too.

"How you doing?" Sam murmured, drawing a little closer. Absently, Luka reached a few fingers across for her hand and stroked it lightly.

"Ok." He replied. It wasn't entirely honest, but he satisfied himself with the fact that it wasn't entirely false, either. He was doing a lot better than Abby was, to be sure.

"How're you?"

"Ok," Sam mimicked his response, as she took a quick peek over the article sitting on his desk, "At least I'm not stuck reading about… warts."

Luka chuckled slightly, pushing the sheets of paper to the side.

"I was thinking about calling Alex." Sam released in a breath after a moment's silence. Luka nodded. "Then I remembered It was three o'clock in the morning, and he probably wouldn't be that appreciative if I, you know, did it now."

Luka smiled, waiting for Sam to go on. He knew the way she worked… the way she warmed up to a point, and that when she had something she wanted to say, he'd have to wait. Asking wasn't much use, eventually she'd say it on her own. So he watched her, now, as she glanced over her shoulder in a slightly distracted way, and as her fingers of her free had absently traced the edge of the desk. Eventually, she brought her gaze around to meet his and Luka listened as he restrained the urge to pull her into a tight embrace, then and there.

"I was just kind of worried, you know? Scared about what this might mean for the rest of us… for the ones we love…" Sam paused, her gaze flitting across the clutter of the desk. And then, with sudden decisiveness, she stepped forward and looked half pleadingly down into his eyes.

"You don't think it's selfish to be scared, do you? I mean," Sam hesitated, visibly searching for the right words, "Is there some way we can help her at all?"

"No, not really." Luka replied honestly, as he stood up and wrapped his arms gently around Sam. He loved the way she settled into his embrace, as if it was her home… he knew it was his.

"But if one of us had been there…" Sam's muffled voice murmured into his shirt, "…no one would have even made a play at trying to kidnap a person. I mean, what kind of idiot abducts a Doctor? What if – what if one of us had been there?"

"Hey, hey…" Luka murmured into a cluster of golden curls, completely forgetting his use of slang, and wishing he could have stayed that way forever. With the warmth of her form safe inside his arms, her head buried into his chest and her hands linked around his back as if she would never let go. "It's over. We can't change it now." He whispered softly into the space above her head, stroking the softness at the nape of her neck as if he was holding a distraught child. How priceless it was, the countless number of times during their short life he had held his own children so close. How terribly heart rending, yet priceless. And how priceless it was that he should be blessed with the chance to hold another person so close… another person whom he loved. Luka suddenly remembered the reason why he could not erase all his memories. How precious, if terrible, some of them were.

Luka suddenly heard a muffled chuckle, and Sam shifted her shoulders and craned her neck upwards to look at him. Despite the worry in her eyes, there was a smile playing on her lips, and he couldn't help but return it.

"Well, fat lot of good you are, aren't you?" Sam murmured, standing on her tip-toes to place a quick kiss on his cheek.

Luka grinned, but swallowed with a dry throat as Sam burrowed her head into his shirt again. It was a good while before he responded, but when he did, he wasn't quite sure what to say. Was he really useless? Would he lose Sam if he ever let her out of his sight again?

"I'm sorry." Luka apologised quietly, trying to contain a range of emotions in two such small words.

"Don't be." Was Sam's muffled response, and Luka planted a quick kiss amongst the cluster of curls, not caring if anybody was watching. If it was true that he'd managed to fit so many emotions into barely two words, then Sam had just about done the same thing.

---

Neela was furious. She couldn't remember when she'd last felt so mad, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd acted so rudely towards a superior… and to tell the truth, she honestly didn't care. She'd been fuming the entire length of Morris' spiel, and she was surprised she'd lasted as long as she had. There were a number of factors fuelling her anger, and Morris was only one of them, but he'd just tipped her over the edge.

She couldn't stand it anymore.

She was mad at Morris, she was mad at Ray, at Pratt, at Doctor Lewis, at Aster, at the entire medical universe… but most of all, she was mad at herself.

"Right, this is it." Neela muttered under her breath as she sped along the corridor, dodging patients, nurses and orderlies at lightning speed. She wasn't a Doctor for nothing, her reflexes were good.

_This is it, _she said to herself, _you're going to see Abby. You should have done it hours ago, you bloody git, but what the hell? You're going now, and you're going to think of something to say. Something to say, and fast, because here comes exam two right now-_

"Neela!"

Neela stopped dead in her tracks, fuming. She could practically feel the heat rising from her, and she was deadly sure that smoke was pouring out of her ears. She felt like a dragon. Like she was going to bite some poor, unsuspecting person's head of at any moment. She was tired, she was cranky, she was flaming mad… and now, of all times, someone wanted her. Neela spun around on the spot.

"What!" She snapped angrily, thinking that whoever was interrupting her now, better have a damn good reason.

It turned out to be Haleh, standing motionless in her floral scrubs, a wary look upon her face.

"Aster James, from exam three…"

"What about her?"

"She's gone."

Neela's jaw abruptly dropped.

"Gone!"

"Yes, gone!"

"She's not there?"

"No, she's gone."

Neela hurriedly closed the distance between her and Haleh, momentarily snapped out of her flaming dragon phase.

"Gone, as in left the hospital?"

"No, gone, as in left her gown folded neatly on top of the bed, and her backpack sitting on a chair."

"Dammit!" Neela cursed under her breath, striding as fast as she could to bridge the distance between her and exam three, and barging through the glass door.

As soon as Neela entered the room, she knew something wasn't right.

The first thing her eyes saw was the hospital gown folded neatly on top of the bed. That in itself was odd, because nobody ever folded a gown unless they were an orderly, and had been cleaning it – and this one still had tell-tale creases all over it. There was the backpack, sitting neatly on the chair beside the bed, and the bed itself, was completely empty.

_Oh please, no. Not now, not now, not now._

"See, just like I told you." An out of breath Haleh suddenly appeared behind her, and Neela followed her first impulse, which was to call the girl's name.

"Aster?"

"Aster?" She called again, pulling back the curtains to the next bed, only to be met with the sight of a perturbed elderly woman hooked up to an IV.

"Do I look like a florist?" The old lady said and gave a stony glare.

Neela hurriedly tried to explain. "You didn't see a teenage girl leave this room at all, did you? Tall, pale, wearing jeans and a… a brown coloured t-shirt."

"Well, how am I supposed to know? The curtain was closed. And if you don't mind, I'd like to keep it like that."

"Dammit…" Neela cursed again quietly as she whipped the curtain closed and moaned.

Why did it feel as if they'd started an El route straight through her brain?

"Listen. Even though us nurses are _never _busy at all, I'll take a look around, but I can't promise much."

Neela turned a head back over her shoulder, already on her way out the door.

"…Thanks, Haleh."

With a last, lingering glance towards the empty bed, she hurriedly exited the room. "Why? _Why?_ Please, no, please no, please, no…" she kept repeating over and over to herself like a mantra, as she ran from room to room and skirted the ER with her eyes. "How could I bloody lose a patient at this time of the morning?" No sign in curtain two. No tall, limping teenager with hair the colour of her shirt in curtain three, either. No results from four, from admit, from triage, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then, out the corner of her eye, the dark, purple shirted figure of Doctor Pratt. _Ohhh no. Not now. I don't want to talk to you now._

"Neela… what are you doing?" Pratt stood by her left elbow, arms folded across his chest and a quizzical look upon his face.

"I lost a patient." Neela intoned flatly, bluntly.

"How did that happen?"

If Pratt had been angry with her, Neela would have been fine. She could handle something like anger. It was straightforward, blunt… but the way Pratt has asked her that question, it sounded more like she was a little kid in whom he was very disappointed.

She couldn't stand being a disappointment, not even when she was so mad.

"Look, I just left the room, I went back, and she was.. gone. She's still in the hospital, I'm sure of it - I've looked everywhere, honestly, I have."

Pratt looked down at her, his arms still folded across his chest.

"Have you tried upstairs?"

Neela sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead. She swore there was now an interchange and an entire station in there, too.

"No, not yet."

"Well then quickly, Neela. We can't have lost patients wandering all over the place. Go go go, quick!"

Leaving her to her own devices, Pratt wandered away in the direction he'd appeared from.

_So that's the thanks I get,_ thought Neela, _for getting back at Morris for you. Well, that's the last time…_

Suppressing another rising sigh, Neela adjusted the stethoscope around her neck and headed in the direction of the elevator. Just where _could_ a seventeen year old girl with rheumatoid arthritis possibly go in a county hospital at three o'clock in the morning? As Neela hit the button about fifty times more than was necessary and waited outside the doors, she muttered under her breath, "How can I lose a teenager in a place like this?"


	7. Found

**Author's To-Do List: **1. Finish Chemistry homework. 2. Get up to date with English class work, including reading Hamlet. 3. Update maths summary notebook, cringe over calculus, and wonder in amazement over why I chose such a difficult maths course. 4. Produce four sustained, developed, and above all artistic artworks. 5. Die a slow, painful, schoolwork-induced death. 6. Scream in pure excitement and delight bordering on insanity that winter holidays are here.

7. WRITE THE REST OF MY STORY.

I promise you, I have not left it alone to die.

**Author's disclaimer: **Sometimes I like to delude myself into thinking that I own it, when, in fact, I do not. Such is life.

**Chapter 7 - Found**

Aster James watched her useless fingers as they rested on the piano. Just now, she hated her fingers. She hated her body. It had betrayed her. And she was stuck with it.

She wasn't sitting at the most beautiful piano, but it was a piano nonetheless, and that was what mattered. She felt more at home on the stool of the large instrument then she did in any other chair. She'd been playing since the age of seven, for goodness sake… ten years of music lessons, of critical teachers, critical parents, of learning Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin… ten years filled with music. She'd always been around music, around it and within it. She didn't know what a life without music was like. And now, because her body couldn't handle it, she was forced to abandon the thing that she loved?

A constant stream of hot tears spilled down her face, falling on the lovely black and white keys. She'd never been a loud person. Often, people mistook it for arrogance, or just plain shyness. She didn't care, they weren't the type of people she wanted to be around anyway. The thing was, she just wasn't loud. She was solitary. She never cried in front of other people, not even her mom and dad. Crying was only for extreme times, for the solace of her room, when nobody was there to see. And emotions were for the piano. When her fingers were running up and down the beautiful notes, she ceased to exist… all her worries and her cares were carried by the music. Her parents had never agreed with spending that money on lessons, though. They couldn't see the difference between making music and not making music. They didn't understand. They couldn't make music.

Aster shook a little as she drew a breath, closed her eyes, and pressed a key with her stiff finger. She mouthed the words with quivering lips: "C sharp." She'd always had perfect pitch. She could pick any note, and she'd be right. Opening her eyes, the girl looked at her finger, resting on the black note. It was correct.

Maybe this would be the last time she'd ever play something. She hadn't touched a piano for weeks, and it had almost killed her. She knew that she was most probably going to get worse. She'd seen what arthritis did to old people. Once, she'd played in a nursing home, for a group of lonely grandparents that the world had forgotten… it seemed that way, anyway, as she'd walked between them at the end. They'd clasped her hands between their shaking ones and thanked her over and over for coming to give them music, because nobody else ever did. When she'd gotten back to her room that night, she'd cried. And now, she was like them. She couldn't even bring them music anymore. She didn't need to wait for any test results. She knew it, deep down. She was seventeen years old, and she had arthritis.

Wincing at the pain in her fingers, Aster stretched them as far as she possibly could, and brought them down onto the keys. Before she could think, her fingers started playing. That was the way it had always been. She never had to think when she played, it just _came._

The girl swallowed a sob, sniffling as a tear trickled down her chin, and her body took the full force of the emotion. Her shoulders shook, but she kept playing. This was the way she wanted it to be. It was the only thing she needed. Was it really too much to ask? Was it honestly too much for a girl to ask, that she should be able to do just one thing? The bimbos in her grade had never once laid so much as a pinkie on a musical instrument, she was sure of it. Why did they get to have perfect bodies? Her fingers hurt, and she could barely move them, but they flirted and flaunted and painted their nails and waved them from the backseats of convertibles without a second thought. It just wasn't fair.

The song Aster played was a simple one, just chords, over and over again. She twisted her stiff fingers into the next position, sometimes she missed a note or two, sometimes she hit them… but she was playing. And the pain in her chest hurt more than the pain in her fingers. It was her heart, she was sure of it. It hurt more than anything else she could describe, as the notes swirled past her closed eyes and she felt them, so close but so far away.

---

Abby was beginning to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

She'd felt brave, deciding to leave the ER. She'd felt something like her old self again. That's what she would have done, wouldn't she? If she wanted to do something, then she'd get along and do it, no questions asked. She thought that maybe, just maybe if she'd done something with herself, if she'd made an effort to move and walk and talk and come to terms with everything, she'd be on the path to recovery. Of course nothing was instant, but surely – she'd been able to keep herself away from a serious drink for years. Why should this be any different? Why couldn't she just work through the steps? Needless to say, any confidence she'd had was now draining into nervousness and anxiety. There was still the constant pad of her feet, but every now and again there would be the shuffling of shoes and she'd pass a surgeon or nurse in the corridor. They'd glance at her strangely, some of them would even smile. She couldn't decide wether she felt like running away or knocking them to the ground.

She felt sure there were eyes watching her from behind, yet when she turned over her shoulder there was rarely anybody there. She could have sworn there were people between the gaps of vertical blinds, or that the next person to come around the corridor would be a person she recognized. Abby hugged her arms around protectively around herself. Maybe she could get back to elevator right now, slip straight back into exam two and nobody would even know she'd left. They probably hadn't noticed the first time she'd disappeared. Why a second time? Abby stopped, debating silently wether or not to turn herself around.

Then all of a sudden, he appeared around the corner, and he was heading straight in her direction.

She guessed he was a surgeon, judging by the sterile cap and mask. He was tall, middle-aged, and she couldn't place why she didn't recognise him. Perhaps he was visiting. Why he should be visiting County she couldn't imagine, but he strode tall and proud in her direction as if he owned the entire place. Abby felt herself shrink in his presence. He was tall and imposing. She felt small, naked, and vulnerable. She hungered for the floor to swallow her up.

Abby followed him with calculating eyes as she shrank close to the wall, hoping her presence might go unnoticed or that he might decide to turn around and head the other way. Still, he drew nearer. He walked closer and closer. His head turned her way, and it was then that everything seemed to move in slow motion. The surgeon slowly rolled down his mask, and he looked directly at her. Abby pressed herself as far as she could into the wall. His strong, muscular hands looked like something that could overpower her in an instant. They reminded her of the ones that had grabbed her so roughly, that had held the gun to her. He smiled.

Abby's eyes grew wide. He seemed to bear down upon her – something in those eyes seemed so dark and menacing, and she could almost feel his cold hands clasped around her wrists, a gun jabbing her shoulder. She imagined him just reaching out, clapping a hand over her mouth and forcing her into a side door, where no one could even hear her scream for help. Abby felt her breath become hard and drawn, and the cold wall behind her seemed to push her forward, right into his path. The corridor was spinning so quickly, so quickly that she thought she might faint.

Then something in the back of her mind snapped. He was almost in front of her, that smile still upon his lips, and her world suddenly stopped reeling. Something like an instinct kicked in, and she knew she had to protect herself, to fight, and to get away. She knew she had to stop it any way she could. Every way she could. Abby shook herself, scrambled past him, and hurried down the corridor as fast as her aching legs could carry her.

It wasn't until she'd turned numerous corners and collapsed against a wall, her head and chest heavy and her lungs burning for air, that she'd realised she hadn't been followed. It dawned on her that he'd never actually come within five metres of her. Slowly, she slid down the length of the wall, hitting the ground with a distant thump.

Abby coughed, sucking in the air as she dropped her head into her hands. Oh God, she was stupid. How had she ever expected to return to some resemblance of normality? She was a wreck. She was burned, and there was no way she was going to get out of this hole. Not even with Susan's help. Those damn steps. What use were they to anyone? Abby moaned, a little whimper of frustration. Was she ever going to be able to be able to leave herself alone with another man again? Why had she brought Susan into this? What had she done?

Abby stared upwards at the ceiling, her chest heaving. _This is it, _she thought, _I don't think I can get up._ Her bottom lip quivered as she stared hard at the ugly, white ceiling, and fought back the tears. _This is it._ Her limbs felt utterly spent. She just felt like curling up and dying.

Then Abby heard something – something she wasn't used to hearing in a hospital. The sound seemed out of place. It didn't match the sterile, sanitised environment, in fact it seemed so far removed from everything around her that Abby wondered if she was imagining things. It was music, piano music. A little stilted and hesitant, completely out of place and barely audible, but it was still music. Nice, peaceful. Sad.

Abby placed both her shaking hands on the floor and awkwardly lifted herself into a standing position. Her legs shook a little and ached like crazy, but she could stand. At least she could do that. The music became a little louder as she ventured around a corner, and she started to follow the sound, walking curiously but apprehensively towards the end of the hallway.

As Abby rounded the next corner, her mind began to piece together all the different fragments of information. The music was getting louder and louder as she neared the end of a long corridor, where a sign was hanging overhead with an arrow pointing to the right, directing her to the 'Chapel'. Of course. Where else would there have been a piano? She was hearing real music – someone was playing. She wondered who. Abby paused a few moments, debating internally wether or not she really wanted to know. Did she really want to confront another person? After what she'd just done…. In the end, curiosity got the better of her, and Abby decided to peer around the edge of the doorway and just observe.

She was met with a different sort of light to the stark, sanitised, artificial hospital light. True, this light was artificial too, but it seemed a little softer. A lot more tempered, much more easy on the eyes and not nearly as ugly. The chapel was empty. Empty, save for the ornaments up the front, and a lone figure sitting just off to the right at a piano stool, playing.

The first thing that struck Abby about the person was her hair – it seemed to be the same colour as her t-shirt. With hair that colour, like straw or honey, who would have thought you could find a matching shirt? And she couldn't seem tell how old the person was. Twenty something? She had a nice figure. Abby felt a vague notion of jealousy. She also noticed that the woman wasn't wearing a hospital gown. Abby sucked in a cautious breath. Was she patient, or Doctor? Ally or enemy?

Collecting herself, Abby decided it couldn't hurt anyone to go in and listen. She ducked her head self-consciously, and discreetly skirted the edge of the pews. It was slightly ironic, Abby thought, the fact that she never visited the chapel when she was at the hospital for hours on end, yet here she was – completely at random, and the first place she actually decided to stay in for more than ten seconds was the chapel. But there was nobody else in sight, and she felt herself relax a little as she approached the figure. It was kind of peaceful in the chapel, and the music added to the atmosphere. Abby sat a few rows from the front, and let herself listen.

The music was nice, and whoever was playing it didn't seem to mind that Abby was there. Either that, or they didn't seem to notice. Abby liked it better that way, and she slouched her shoulders a little, taking in her surroundings. The chapel, she noticed, didn't seem to belong to any particular sect or denomination. There was a cross up the front, a lectern of some description, a few paintings hanging at irregular intervals along the wall, but apart from that it didn't seem to be distinctly catholic, protestant, or anything much. Very… ecumenical, versatile – Abby mused, her eyes resting on painting hanging on the wall to her right. It was a rather intriguing painting – of a woman, wearing a blue dress and with straight, brown hair falling just below her shoulders. She was sitting in front of a window, but she didn't look out of it – instead, she gazed right out from the painting, her eyes half lively and half sad, and her lips caught somewhere between an expressionless line and a smile. Abby couldn't decide wether she looked like she was about to cry, or about to laugh – but something else was very interesting. It was her hand. It was resting on the window sill, and it had a pink, jagged scar running just above the thumb. _Weird_. The painting seemed very fitting for a hospital chapel. _I wonder who paid for that one?_ Abby thought, staring up with admiration. She found herself deciding that she liked it.

It was a few moments before Abby suddenly realised that the music had stopped. As she noticed the silence, she felt her body tense immediately – making her realise just how relaxed she'd allowed herself to become. Maybe she shouldn't have come in after all. Maybe she should have just stayed outside, and listened. Abby had the unmistakeable feeling that a pair of eyes was watching her, and sure enough, when she turned her gaze to the figure seated at the piano, two round, frightened blue eyes were gazing straight back. There was nothing Abby could do but hold her gaze with the woman at the piano, only Abby realised it wasn't a woman, it was a girl. She couldn't even have been eighteen. Her figure didn't show it, but her face did. Most noticeably, the girl's eyes were puffy and red. She'd been crying.

Neither spoke for awhile. They sat there, Abby in her wooden pew with her scrub pants and hospital gown, and the tall girl with her blue jeans and honey/straw coloured shirt. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, but it was calculating. Each felt the other taking in their respective appearance and trying to piece together the situation in their mind. Abby couldn't help but feel guilty that she'd barged in on such a personal moment, because it did seem personal, now that she thought about it. A girl sitting at the piano, her eyes puffy and red, her cheeks glistening… It wasn't right of her to walk in uninvited, not when she didn't want to see anyone herself. Abby quickly stood up to leave.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have- I'm sorry." Abby mumbled hastily, before being cut off by the girl.

"Who are you?"

It was a blunt question. Clean, straight, and to the point. Abby felt it deserved a blunt answer.

"I'm Abby." Abby replied impassively, unmoving. Something was making her stay where she was, and she wasn't sure why. The girl didn't say anything in return, but just sat staring with her puffy eyes, and for barely a flicker in time, Abby thought she saw something familiar in the tear streaked face. Then she brushed the feeling away as quick as it had come. Whatever the case, she didn't feel afraid of the girl. She couldn't, really. Not when the girl seemed so afraid of her. Abby sat down awkwardly.

"That was beautiful playing," she offered to the girl. It _had _been nice playing, and Abby didn't feel she could intrude without at least offering a compliment.

The girl nodded her head in a barely discernible action, but left her head looking down. She sniffled quietly.

"It wasn't anything special."

_But it was, _thought Abby, _it was. It got me up off that floor. That has to count for something._

"It was nice." Abby mused out loud.

"Thanks." The girl whispered, unsmilingly. Abby watched, and began to wonder why the girl was crying. She most definitely wasn't a doctor, way too young. Who was she, then? Why was she here? Had somebody done something to her?

"What's your name?" Abby questioned, finding with a surprise that she was genuinely interested to know. Sometimes, when working, that question could become a reflex action. Less often for her than for, say, someone like Ray, but nevertheless, she'd asked it a lot. It was nice to know it still had a bit of meaning in the real world.

"Aster." The girl murmured, wiping away a stray tear. Then for one terrible second, Abby noticed the face contort with pain, and the girl gasped as she brought her arm away from her face. Then, as quick as it had appeared the expression was gone, and she rested her hands in her lap and returned to a quiet, wary composure. Abby thought it must have been her imagination, but something made her wonder.

"Are you in pain?" Abby inquired softly, hoping that she didn't sound too much like a Doctor. That was all she needed right now, to start treating everybody around her like a patient. A voice in the back of her head told her that it was none of her business. Maybe she'd even imagined. Imagined a face contorting in such pain? Still, she went against feeling, and waited to see if the girl would respond.

Aster regarded her hesitantly for a moment or two, as if deciding wether or not she was trustworthy. Then, at length, she nodded a slow yes. Abby watched, saddened and guilty as a fresh stream of tears suddenly leaked down Aster's cheeks and the girl slowly twisted herself around to face the piano. Abby felt awful. She'd made the girl cry. It was none of her business, she shouldn't have even asked, and she'd made the girl cry. Abby half expected the music to start again, but it didn't. There was nothing but the silent shaking of Aster's shoulders and the occasional, barely audible sob as she cried to herself. Crying in the chapel. It was painful to hear such quiet sadness.

Abby looked on silently for a few moments. Her mind was ticking, for once, taken away from her own troubles. A girl who cried when she played the piano, who seemed to be in bodily pain, who couldn't so much as lift an hand to wipe her eyes without her face contorting in anguish… there were a few possibilities for such a scenario, none of which were particularly good.

Then Abby found herself getting up, and slowly approaching the piano. Maybe it was stupid of her, but she felt like there was some sort of connection. Like somehow, they might just understand one another a little. She vaguely remembered something Frank had said to her once, about women being too emotional about these sorts of things, about how they always got too emotionally attached to the patient to even contemplate messing around with chest tubes and scalpels. Of course it was outright sexist, but she'd gotten used to those sorts of things coming from Frank. Maybe some of it was true. But at that moment, Abby didn't care. She let herself become emotionally attached. Besides, she wasn't the Doctor anymore. The socks on her feet made her approach silent, and she quietly lowered herself onto the piano stool beside Aster, reaching an instinctive hand to rub the girl's back.

"Shhh…" Abby mumbled quietly, her eyes silently surveying the room about them as she gently rubbed Aster's shoulder. "Shhh… It's okay. It's okay." Aster shook, and the tears fell in small, clear circles in the piano keys but Abby continued. "It's okay. Don't worry."

Abby's eyes were drawn back to the piano as she watched Aster reach stiff, swollen fingers to wipe her tears from the black and white keys. _She cares about that instrument more than she does about herself,_ Abby thought in bewilderment. She was about to reach into her pocket for a packet of tissues, before she suddenly remembered she didn't have her coat on any more. Then Aster whispered, in a voice thick with tears.

"I've got arthritis. I don't think its gonna be okay."

The word dropped like a bomb. Arthritis. No wonder the girl was in pain. Out of all the things in this world that could happen, arthritis? She was just a girl. Abby found herself glaring at the crucifix up the front of the room. Why? Why had she had a gun trained upon her all night, and why was a kid doomed to live out her youth like she was eighty years old? Abby turned again to look at the down-turned, honey coloured head. Then it was as if she'd been struck by lightning. She knew what was so familiar about Aster's face. She could see her own face, there. The puffy eyes, the tear streaked cheeks, and that one, agonizing question.

Why me?

Abby felt hot tears sting the corners of her eyes. Maybe she'd never figure out the answer. Maybe neither of them ever would. Maybe that was just the way things were. She was going to live with the memories of this night for the rest of her life, and Aster was going to live with a debilitating disease the rest of her life. Tracing gentle movements along the crying girl's shoulder blades, Abby swallowed and glanced at the painting of the woman with the scar.

"We're gonna be okay," she mumbled softly, trying to control her voice as best she could. Then more determined as she glanced at the down-turned head, "The both of us. Alright?"

Aster stifled a sob. Quietly she looked up, and Abby watched as she nodded her head slowly.

"Both of us?" Aster whispered, trying to wipe her face on her shirt sleeve.

Abby gazed back with serious brown eyes.

"Both of us."

The silence that followed was comfortable. Abby stared down at the piano, seeing but not seeing – looking beyond what was there. In her mind she saw herself sitting, slumped against that wall, and remembered hearing that music. It had been nice. Somehow, it had gotten her to stand up again.

Abby glanced sideways at Aster, and raised her eyebrows raised with an earnest question.

"Do you think you could play that song again?"

The girl lifted her head, her forehead knotted in confusion for a moment. At length she nodded, whispering, "I think so."

Wordlessly, Aster lowered her swollen fingers onto the keys, and pressed the notes quietly. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain, and once again the sad, peaceful tune filled the chapel. Abby's gaze drifted across the room, back to the woman in the painting. She still couldn't decide wether she was smiling or frowning, happy or sad, laughing or crying. It was distantly aggravating, yet also… intriguing. Regardless of anything, the woman just sat there – waiting endlessly at her windowsill, never looking out. Abby wondered wether or not there was a nice view.

It seemed to strange that only hours ago, Susan had been her, telling her that she was going to be okay. Abby hadn't really believed it, then. She wasn't sure if she believed now, but as her gaze drifted back to Aster's down turned head, and her stiff, swollen fingers gently pressing the keys, she realised it needed to be true. For both of their sakes.

---

The slight heel on Neela's black leather shoes echoed in the corridor as she hurried along. Outwardly, she was an anxious, fidgeting, speeding Intern who had somehow managed to lose a patient. Inwardly, she was flabbergasted that one corridor could contain so many doors – that all looked exactly the same. Some of them were open, and she quickly scanned the rooms with large, dark eyes but those that weren't she brushed past, trying to get wherever she was going as fast as she possibly could.

"Please, please…" the Doctor muttered over and over to herself, contemplating wether or not she should sit down and wait for divine inspiration. She was at a loss for anything else to do. The hospital was a very big place, and she wasn't getting any results.

_I should be treating patients. I'm an ER Doctor. What if I miss something? What if a trauma's come in, and I've gone and missed it? _Neela fretted anxiously as she glanced through another doorway and shuffled forwards. _What if Pratt's told them not to page me? What if they've all gone to see Abby anyhow? What if I never find the girl, and I get sued by her parents? What if they're all downstairs laughing at me? Oh please, please…_

Neela skidded to a halt at the end of a corridor. All the corridors bloody looked the same. How was she ever going to find a teenage girl this way? "Think, Neela think…" the Doctor muttered to herself, earning a strange look from a passing nurse. _Come on, come one! Some divine inspiration would be really useful, right about now._

Neela didn't know wether it was divine inspiration or not, but that very moment, she saw a sign. Quite literally – it was hanging from the ceiling, painted in yellow with black lettering like it belonged on a roadway. "Chapel…" Neela mouthed the words silently, glancing in the direction of the pointed arrow. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of it before?

Neela picked up her feet and hurried along the hallway. Now, it was all making sense. She could hear music – piano music. It was a mournful song, and it became gradually louder as she closed the distance. She remembered Aster's words. "I stopped playing piano… couldn't move my fingers fast enough." Neela's sharp ear for music picked out some wrong notes, and some tell-tale fumbling. That would be thanks to the swelling in her fingers… there was no doubt about it. She was hearing Aster play.

Neela was prepared already to barge through the door. The beginnings of a sharp reprimand were forming on the back of her tongue already. Why was Aster playing? Surely she knew it wasn't good for her. Didn't she know that she wasn't allowed to be up here? She didn't have permission, and she had a medical condition. Neela she felt that dragon returning to her. She felt dangerous again, like she was going to bite somebody's head off. This time, it was going to be Aster's. Then, as soon as she caught sight of the piano through the open chapel doorway, Neela stopped. Any harsh words evaporated, and she was completely at a loss.

Sitting on the piano stool, beside hunched figure of Aster, was somebody completely unmistakeable. _Oh my God, _Neela thought,_ it's Abby…_ Her eyes wide and her jaw on the verge of hitting the floor, Neela watched the back of her friend through the doorway. What was Abby doing here? She was supposed to be in exam two. What was Aster James doing here? She was supposed to be in exam three. So many things were _supposed _to be a certain way… but nothing was right. Everything was wrong. What was going on? Neela shrunk backwards, out of sight, before either person could hear or see her.

She wasn't ready for this. In that chapel, were two people she had to face, but didn't know how. How could she confirm Aster's destiny? Her doom? The lab results weighed heavily in her pocket. And how could she even face Abby? She had no idea what her friend had been through. She'd been abducted, for goodness sake. One word was revolving over and over in Neela's mind, she could see it before her eyes as plain as daylight: Failure. _You're a failure, Neela Rasgotra. You're a failure. Why become a doctor when you can't even speak to your friend? Failure, failure, failure, FAILURE._

Neela watched on in silence, as the pair sat shoulder to shoulder, and the music floated through the silence of the long, hospital corridors. There was an odd, tight feeling in her throat as she reached slowly into her pocket to grasp Aster's lab results. Neela fingered the paper, watching through the doorway as something registered in the back of her mind. _I know that piece, _she thought. _Chopin. Prelude. I've heard it before. _Neela swallowed. Chopin had died young. He'd never reached the age of forty. And he'd composed such beautiful music – so sad, though. It sounded so sad.

And Neela found that she couldn't move. She couldn't decided wether she wanted to tell Aster, or not. Regardless, it seemed certain that Aster already knew. Neela couldn't decide wether she wanted to hug Abby, or cry behind her turned back. But not even a tear came as she folded her arms quietly and watched. Maybe, just maybe, two of her failures could come together and find some sort of comfort in each other.

Neela almost jumped a mile high when her pager went off.

Before she could reach a finger to stop it, the buzzing and beeping cut right through the middle of the piece. Neela fumbled for the infernal thing in her pocket, at last grasping it between her fingers and pressing the button. When she looked up through the doorway, both Abby and Aster were turned to face her, and the music had stopped dead. As always, Aster's eyes were unnervingly staring, but for the first time since Neela had seen Abby being carried in, Abby was looking straight at her.

No one smiled. And it was eerily silent as Neela stepped through the doorway, her arms hugged tightly around her as if she was cold. She smiled weakly. _Failure._

"Abby?"


	8. If You Didn't Know

**Author's author's note ('cause I'm aloud to have one, aren't I?): **Actually, I'm not so sure If I _should_ be allowed to have one… 'cause I've been a bad author. Bad. I haven't updated for… goodness know how long. And I am dreadfully sorry. Schoolwork had something to do with it… and yes, **soaringmonkeymuffins, **I'll try not to die from schoolwork overload! Gasp…

**Author's disclaimer ('cause I s'pose I _should _have one…): **Yes! I finally own it!... darn, knew it wouldn't work. Grumble.

**Chapter 8 – If You Didn't Know…**

"Hello, Neela." Abby suddenly turned on an airy smile. Her voice was soft, vaguely sardonic and so… Abbyish. It sounded so normal. Something made Neela feel very uneasy.

"Hi."

Neela took another step forward, still smiling weakly and eyeing the pair on the piano stool warily. Abby didn't seem to either shrink backward or lean forward. Neela couldn't decide how to read the body language – there didn't seem to be anything there to read.

As her shoes made a gentle clip clop sound down the aisle, Neela wished she'd worn a more silent pair. Inside her mind, a battle was raging.

_Run away, run away before you do anything else stupid._

_No, go! Go to her… she needs you._

_What, a failure like me? Let Doctor Lewis handle this. They've known each other longer. She's a better Doctor than I am. My patient satisfaction scores sucked. You hear? They sucked. And I'm not even American…_

_It's not about being a better Doctor. It's not about being American. We're all people in here, right? And Abby's not a patient. Sort of. This is a friend you're dealing with! Go on, comfort her. She needs someone at a time like this. Someone like you. You're steady, if a little socially inept, but reliable…_

_Someone like me? Yeah right. Socially inept. Right about now would be the time to start thinking about moving out._

Abby wasn't much help. She didn't even give her one clue. She just seemed to be… sitting there. Not even waiting for anything, just sitting there and smiling lightly, her eyes all shiny and glazed…

Oh gods. She'd been crying. Both of them had.

There it was again, that odd, tight feeling in her throat. Neela swallowed as she stood before Abby. If there ever was a time when she wished that she could be a hundred times more brave, then now was it.

Neela tried to drown all her fears as she leaned awkwardly towards Abby and hugged her.

She felt Abby return the hug, but something about it wasn't quite right. Something seemed… fake. So awkward. Neela understood their friendship hadn't really feelings-based one. They'd come together more out of circumstance than anything. They were colleagues, fellow Interns, study-buddies… but neither had ever told one another "You're a great friend, you know that?" Did that mean she'd been taking Abby for granted? She'd slept on her couch for six months, drank all her milk and eaten all her cereal… Not that she based her friendships on hugs and slumber parties and painting each other's toenails and all that jazz, but she'd just never ever told Abby that… that she was her friend.

Neela pulled away. She felt far too sentimental to be useful.

"How're you going?"

"Fine, okay." Abby answered too quickly. There was still that airy smile on her lips, only now Neela knew. It was fake. It had to be. She couldn't be smiling after all that she'd been through.

"You okay, though?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"But I mean-"

"I'm fine." Abby repeated with a little annoyance, her expression wavering for a moment, then reverting back to one of calm complacency. It irked Neela.

"I heard- Susan. She told us."

"Yeah. I know."

Silence. Neela absently noticed Aster's eyes flicking between the two of them, trying to make sense of the awkward situation. Because of course, Doctors didn't just run around hugging patients at random. They just didn't. Then why… why had the two of them been crying? What where they even doing here? Did Abby know anything about the arthritis?

Neela cleared her throat.

"Is… is there anything I can do?"

Abby squinted slightly through her smile, and Neela felt like she was being scrutinized, very closely. She prayed for it to end soon.

"No. It's okay."

For a moment, Neela was lost for words. Then she suddenly remembered the one thing that she _could _do.

"I, uh… I can take you home, after my shift ends. If you want?"

She darted her eyes nervously from Abby, to Aster, then back to Abby again. For some reason, she wasn't surprised when she noticed that Abby's expression hadn't changed in the slightest.

"Okay… thanks." Abby replied curtly with a little nod. There was a pause, and Neela waited to be told, 'okay, you can leave now,' but it never came. She shifted her stance nervously. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to break the silence. Then, in a sudden moment of recollection, She remembered why she was there, and hastily turned to face Aster.

"Aster?" She inquired nicely of the girl, who'd been silent up till now. "I think we've got to go back downstairs. It'll be time to call your parents soon."

Aster didn't say a thing.

"It's not good for you, playing the piano, you know."

"I know." Came the steely response. Neela shivered when she was the redness around the girl's eyes. They were still so blue, and she was sure the girl hated her. Well, she was only another in a long string of dissatisfied patients who had filled out forms on her.

"Is she yours?" Abby murmured, catching Neela's eye.

"Uh – yeah. Yes, she is. Yes."

"Okay."

Silence followed, not one of the three making any movement, until Neela's pager suddenly erupted again.

"Oh, dammit. I-" Neela muttered, fumbling for the beeping device in her coat pocket.

"That's okay, go downstairs. They want you."

"I'm sorry?"

"The need you down there. Go." Abby repeated, as Neela found the button and jabbed it mercilessly with an expression of distaste. "Go on, I can bring her back down again."

"What? I mean – are you sure?"

Abby looked her square in the eye.

"I'm sure. I'll see you when your shift ends."

Neela's gaze flitted from Aster, to Abby, to Aster and back again. She half smiled, then in an instant was deadly serious again. She'd come up here to find a patient. She'd found patient _plus_ Abby, and now she was supposed to leave without either of them?

"I- I really should bring Aster back down. I mean-"

"Go."

Abby looked up at Neela, held her gaze for a moment, and smiled. But there was something else in the smile, Neela noticed. There was a sadness. Something sad, self-sacrificing, and resigned.

Like she knew that she was alone.

Before she could stop it, Neela's imagination ran away with her. She imagined somebody clapping a hand over Abby's mouth and holding a gun to her temple, forcing her into the back of a truck. She imagined an entire gang surrounding her, fingers at triggers while she worked away on a patient. She imagined them forcing her onto her back…

Neela had to physically stop herself from clapping a hand to her mouth and being sick. Something burned at the back of her eyes, and an unearthly felling was tugging at her throat, making it impossible to form words of any kind. Oh God. How could people be so cruel?

Neela nodded towards Aster. She carefully avoided Abby's eyes, and quickly made her way towards the exit, just how she got there she wasn't quite sure. Things seemed to be going by in a bit of a blur. She hurried along the stupid corridors that all looked the same, and somehow managed to find her way around people and wheelchairs and utility trays back to the elevator. She never thought she'd been so glad to see a pair of steel doors. Neela jabbed the button over and over again, and shifted anxiously from foot the foot, mumbling hotly beneath her breath.

"Come on, come on. Hurry up. Please, come on."

A hot tear spilled down her cheek. Angrily she wiped it away, jabbed the button again, and growled.

"Come on! Let me out of here!"

After what seemed like an eternity, the doors slid open and she practically leaped into the empty elevator. It wasn't until the doors had finally shut behind her that Neela gave in to the overwhelming urge to let her tired body sink backwards against the wall, and let two small, burning tears spill down her cheeks.

"Oh God," she murmured, staring aimlessly across at the opposite wall. "I don't know what to do."

That was it. That was the sum and total of her fears. She didn't know what to do. It was stupid, really, that someone like her who'd been at school for almost all her life could not have been prepared for every possible situation. And it was stupid, really, that she should be crying. Was she such a baby? Neela wiped her sore eyes on her coat sleeve.

If only her students could see her now.

---

It was amazing, the amount of things about the Doctor's lounge that could seem more appealing than paperwork. Procrastination was such an awful word. Susan Lewis rarely used it – that only seemed like admitting to a crime, like if you didn't mention it, than you weren't doing it. So now, she was procrastinating about admitting that she was procrastinating.

She'd ploughed her way through a few charts before that had become insufferable. It was crazy, really. Were they really expected to sign off on everything? Honestly, It seemed you needed about four Doctors and a Nurse just to confirm that a patient existed.

Next, she'd checked the fridge, to see if anyone had been stupid enough to leave behind something that resembled breakfast. Her search had yielded nothing but a mottled banana, and day-old tub of yoghurt. After a quick tossup, she ate the yoghurt. It was still sealed, after all.

After that, she'd reviewed a sheet of budget cuts. Too many numbers, all crammed into such a small space… the makings of a record-braking headache were forming, so Susan lay down on the couch for a quick nap.

When she'd shut her eyes for exactly two seconds, Jerry came barging through the door. She felt ready to strangle him.

"What?" Susan sat up and snapped, irritated.

"Sorry to wake you, but Weaver's calling. Says she's got a bone to pick with you, or something."

Susan flopped backwards onto the couch with a groan.

"She really said that? Okay… I'll take it in here."

"Okay."

Susan breathed very deeply before standing to pick up the receiver.

"Hello?"

The shrill voice, somehow magnified through the cables, came halfway through her greeting and almost burst her eardrum.

"What's going on down there! How can a Doctor be kidnapped from our ambulance bay, and I don't hear about it until I catch my secretary gossiping to radiology?"

"Kerry…" Susan winced and held the receiver back a little way, slumping wearily into a chair. "…I was meaning to call you."

"Meaning is very different from doing, Doctor Lewis, and as the Chief of Staff I'd expect it to be your duty to inform me if something like this happens. Why didn't you?"

"I… I've already made a formal announcement to the rest of the staff. It's only been a couple of hours, I haven't even called the police yet. I just didn't think that-"

"That what? That I wouldn't be concerned about the welfare of you people down there?"

Susan's throat felt dry.

"And what do you mean, you haven't called the police, yet? Susan, A Doctor was abducted, for God's sake! A crime happened! If there's been a breech of security, or if something happens, you have to let me know about it. If something's gone wrong, then It's not like I-"

"What? It's not like you don't care what happens to the little people?" Susan suddenly heard herself say, voice laced with sarcasm. "And would you please stop referring to Abby as 'A Doctor'? _The Doctor_ has a name."

The moment the words had left her mouth, she knew she'd gone too far.

For a few seconds, Weaver was silent, and Susan knew she'd hit a nerve. There was nothing but the muffled sound of breathing on the other end to signify that Kerry was still listening. Susan rubbed a hand across her forehead, feeling weary again.

"Kerry, I-"

"How is Doctor Lockhart?" The voice cut her off, dramatically decreased in volume, but somehow keeping that hard edge it could never seem to get rid of. Susan dug her nail into the woodwork of the table.

"Alright. She came in with blood down her front, but that didn't turn out to be hers. B.p's a little higher than normal, she's sore, there's tension in the shoulders and upper arms, a few bruises here and there, but apart from that, she-"

"That's not what I meant."

Susan closed her eyes, and leaned backwards in her chair. She took a deep breath.

"She's had it pretty rough. The memories are still vivid, and she was doing CPR for a long time. That would account for the pain in her arms. I think… maybe she's suffering post-traumatic stress. Still, I don't know…"

Susan had intended to let the sentence hang in the air, but there was nothing but a dull, white-noise sound coming from the other end.

"…I think it's too early to be looking for help.."

Silence for a few beats. Susan wondered what Kerry's face looked like.

"It's never too early, Doctor Lewis. Why haven't you called the police, yet?"

Straight, blunt, non-evasive. That was Weaver.

"She wasn't ready to talk to them."

"You should still have reported it. It's a crime, Susan, and if you leave it a couple of hours who knows what they might start to think? Who knows just where those people are?"

Susan clapped a hand over her eyes and massaged her temple tiredly. Why was the woman always right?

"Okay. I'll call them now."

"Good. And… Doctor Lewis?"

"Yes?"

"Will you… give my regards to Doctor Lockhart?"

Susan managed a weary smile. She was sure she could translate that from Weaver-ish. It meant something like… she was worried.

"Yes. Okay. Bye."

With a click, Susan set down the receiver. For a few moments, she stared down at a part of the table not covered by paperwork. She dug her nail even deeper. Then she picked up the phone again. She waited for the dial tone. Her fingers methodically jabbed the numbers she needed. She waited, spoke when she had to, waited some more, was redirected, then finally…

"Hello? I'm Doctor Lewis, I'm calling from County General, Chicago. I need to report a kidnapping…"


	9. Wendall

**Author's Apology: **I apologise for a few things. One: That I haven't been around much lately – a combination of assessment tasks and exams. Two: That this chapter is considerably shorter than most previous chapter. Three: That I have left people hanging. I think that is the worst crime that an author can commit, so I'm very sorry.

**Author's Disclaimer:**I never have, Do not claim to, and Never will own ER. There, I think I've covered every possible tense.

**Chapter 9 - Wendall**

"Now people, like I said before, there's only one way to survive in the ER."

Morris was having the time of his life. A gaggle of med students were following him like four, hungry shadows, and they were enraptured by his every word. This was the way he liked it. Showing the green kids the ropes around the graveyard shift, kids who were still eager enough to sit around at three o'clock in the morning massaging old lady's bunions.

Oh, it was a good, good world.

"Now I'll say this once and once only, so you might want to right this down, Evan." Morris pointed a surreptitious finger at a tall, gangly young man writing down his every word, "_Do what the Doctors say. _No questions asked. In a place like this, it pays to be _nice_ to your superiors, people. And why do you think that is? Any suggestions? Come on. No one?"

Morris blinked confusedly, as the med students suddenly parted, causing a small ripple effect. He barely had time to ask 'What the?' before a shoulder-high black and white blur brushed straight into him, knocking the wind clean out of him.

Morris stumbled to the side, wobbled, and coughed noisily. When he regained his balance, he noticed the fact that nobody offered to help him. In fact, Evan was still bobbing his head feverishly up and down, taking notes, of all things.

"What the hell was that?" Morris sputtered, rubbing his shoulder.

"Uhh…" started Evan, gripping his notepad uncertainly, "Isn't she an Intern?"

Morris scanned the corridor behind him. Well, there was only one shoulder-height, white-coated, black-haired Intern around here.

"Neela…" He muttered crankily.

"So," Evan began tentatively, seemingly the question-asker of the bunch, "Be, uh, polite to your superiors… because…"

"Because they're the ones who're gonna be writing your reference!" Said Morris, exasperated. "Come on, people. Three a.m. in the ER doesn't mean time to slack off. Moving on, people. Moving on…"

Meanwhile, Neela high-tailed her way straight for the admit desk, taking only as many detours as she was forced to.

When she got there, she frowned and stopped short. Pratt was swinging his stethoscope nonchalantly around his shoulder. Sam was clicking away at the computer keyboard. Jerry was uttering something suspicious down the phone line. Doctors Kovac and Carter were scanning the board with arms folded, occasionally leaning across to mutter something to the other. The only person missing was Doctor Lewis.

And Abby.

Neela trotted to stand in front of Pratt, her arms folded in front of her chest, her dark eyes calculating suspiciously.

It was a good few seconds before Pratt noticed she was there. Typical, Neela was tempted to say, but she held her tongue. When he finally noticed her, he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"Where's the trauma?" Neela asked bluntly.

Pratt looked down at her if she was speaking Punjabi. He knitted his forehead in confusion.

"What trauma?"

"You paged me. So, what's happening down here? Do you need me?"

Pratt shrugged, gathering an authoritative air that Neela found very aggravating.

"You were taking too long. Someone already called down, anyway. Said they found your patient playing the piano. In the _chapel._"

If he hadn't said that last part as if it were an accusation, Neela would have almost forgiven him.

"Yes. I found her," She said curtly, "And you know who else I found, too? Abby. I asked her how she was doing. She said not so great, but that's okay, and thankyou very much but I'll bring your patient back down shortly. Because downstairs, _someone might really need you._"

And with that, Neela turned on her heel and stormed into the Doctor's lounge.

When she stepped into the softer light of the lounge, however, she'd cooled down sufficiently enough to feel bad about being so rude. This had never happened to her before. Her mouth had never brought her into danger this many times in one night. What was happening to her? What sort of person was she turning into? All she knew was that her shift was speedily turning into the longest and most emotional twelve hours she'd ever experienced in her life.

With a sigh, she turned to the side to fix her eyes on her salvation – coffee. Glorious, warm, above all caffeinated, coffee. Neela shook herself, and went to grab a cup.

"You wouldn't mind making two of those, would you?"

Neela almost jumped a mile high, for the second time that night. She whirled around to be met with the sight of Doctor Lewis, lying on the couch, with her hand over her head and her eyes half closed.

"Oh, sorry…" Neela suddenly stuttered, breathing again. "I didn't know there was anyone else in here."

"That's okay," Said Susan without moving, "Neither does anybody else, apparently."

"You'd like a coffee, Doctor Lewis?"

"Please."

Neela smiled briefly, and grabbed a half-full container of coffee checking quickly to make sure it wasn't decaf. That would defeat the purpose entirely.

"Sugar? Milk?" She asked without turning around.

"No, and no. Thankyou."

Neela spooned the powdery brown substance, flicking the switch on the hot water. The room was slowly filled with the sound of boiling and bubbling, and after a while she could pour the boiling hot liquid into the cheap mugs, giving each a quick stir. Loving the warmth of the ceramic on her fingers, she went to stand by the small table, handing a black coffee to a tired Doctor Lewis.

Silence ensued, and the Doctors drank their coffee while leaving each to their respective thoughts. Neela was starting to feel a whole lot better. She couldn't say the same for Susan, however, who seemed to be screwing up her nose and most likely thinking, 'this stuff's called coffee?' True, it wasn't brilliant, but it was caffeine nonetheless.

But Neela suspected it wasn't just the coffee that was rattling Doctor Lewis. There was something deeper, something similar to what she'd seen in Abby's eyes a little while ago.

The comfortable silence was broken by a slight knock at the door. Susan groaned, but muttered "At least _some _people still knock…", then she swallowed a mouthful of coffee before pushing it to the side. "Come in!" She called tiredly, whilst Neela gripped her own mug with tight knuckles.

"Doctor Lewis?" A blonde, pointed head poked itself around the doorway, smiling kindly. "Hey, it's Wendall."

"Hi Wendall," Susan yawned and smiled, smoothing down her ruffled hair a little. "Anything you need?"

"Well, actually," the social worker continued, stepping inside, "I'm down here to talk to Abby."

The lounge door closed with a thunk. Neela and Susan stared openly, Susan wrinkled her brow in confusion.

"But I didn't call…"

"No, but Weaver did. She told me about it all. Asked me to come down here and do a consult, but seeing as she said Abby was your patient, it was only right to check the situation with you."

Susan blinked.

"Well, I guess so…"

"So," Wendall went on, her voice turning soft and her eyes turning serious as she stared intently at Susan, "How are you doing? All of you?"

Susan looked as if she was about to overload, then swallowed, staring straight back.

"We're okay. Listen, I don't know if Weaver told you, but I never said…"

"Hey, it's okay," Wendall said soothingly, a compassionate smile on her lips. "I'll just have a chat to her, see if we can't talk through a few things, and we'll see how we go from there, okay?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea. I mean, how much do you know about Ab-"

"I won't go too deep."

"You work alongside her, Wendall."

"I know, I know. It'll just be a quick chat, just to see-"

"I just don't know if it should be someone that she works alongside with-"

"She's not down here!" Neela suddenly interrupted, gripping her coffee even tighter than before.

Two pairs of expectant eyes were suddenly upon her, waiting for her to continue.

"What do you mean, 'she's not down here', Neela?" Susan repeated slowly. Neela's knuckles turned white.

"She… I was upstairs, looking for my patient. A teenage rheumatoid girl, she'd gotten a little emotional, to say the least. I found her in the chapel. Found them both in the chapel, actually."

Susan raised her eyebrows.

"The chapel? Why was she in the chapel?"

"Well I don't know."

"And you left her up there?"

"Yes."

"Neela-"

"What was I supposed to do?"

Everybody in the room shifted uncomfortably. Wendall, being the trained social worker that she was, tried to make the best of the situation.

"Well, If you wanted me to, I could just go upstairs and we could do this… in the chapel?"

Susan frowned and shook her head.

"No, No. Listen. The police are already on their way, and I don't believe it would be in _Doctor _Lockhart's best interest if she was forced into two confrontations in such close proximity. Wendall, I understand that you're doing your job. I admire you for that. But I think…"

Susan's voice wavered, and she halted. What did she think? Was she contradicting herself? She was being a hypocrite, surely. After all that time she'd spent in the room with Abby, and she wasn't even a social worker. She was an ER Doctor. But she was also a friend. This was so much harder than it needed to be… Susan suddenly changed her mind so quickly, that she even surprised herself.

"Wendall, how would you feel about helping out with the police? You know what's going on." She was about to add 'and Abby could use the moral support', when she realised that that really _would _be contradicting herself. Part of her was being truthful, as it was. Maybe she should have gotten social work involved earlier. Wendall understood the questioning process. It wasn't her responsibility to be keeping Abby's 'case', and Susan used the word 'case' tentatively, all to herself.

The social worker smiled understandingly. "Sure. Just give us a shout when you're ready." Then she offered each of the Doctors a friendly pat on the shoulder, and exited the lounge.

The door shut with a dull thunk, and Susan surveyed the lounge quietly. Her eyes landed on the coffee cup. She reached over and downed the last of it.

"Well, can't hide out here all night." Said Doctor Susan Lewis almost regretfully. She massaged her forehead tiredly, and with a monumental effort heaved herself up off the couch. "Thanks for the coffee." She smiled quickly over her shoulder, and pushed open the doorway.

Neela waited for the inevitable thunk of the door, sealing her away from the rest of the hospital. For the first time in nine hours, everything was blessedly quiet. Neela sipped her coffee in silence, soaking up the wonderful peace. After all, she didn't know how long it was going to last.


End file.
